It was a brisk November evening at a mortgage industry event where I bumped into Matt Lowndes the managing director at London-based Coreco and it’s there where we got into a conversation about mortgage brokers.
A few clever quips about each other’s profession later and it became evident that neither of us would truly understand each other’s jobs until we spent some time doing what the other did.
Unfortunately Matt has too many commitments being an MD running a business to moonlight as a journalist, and I had a mountain of work to get through before press day in December but a month and a half later, I was standing in Coreco’s office.
It’s Monday morning and two office workers across the road have just got back after a trip to Starbucks and they’re clearly flirting with each other. The office is bland, the staff are procrastinating and no one in that room is all that bothered about working.
However that’s not the office I’m standing in. I’m standing in a filled meeting room with over 20 other people watching a presentation on the current changes in the mortgage market; each other’s targets and progress for the week and what everyone needs to improve on. This is a Coreco Monday morning and the atmosphere is electric at the City of London-based brokerage.
Richard Campo, head of sales at Coreco, does a presentation here every Monday morning to make sure everyone is up to speed and has all the market intel.
“It’s important that everyone is on the same page,” Campo says. “The Monday morning meetings are a key part in making sure that all of our advisers are then able to bounce ideas off each other and help themselves out.”
Campo goes through which areas the advisers need to be targeting and he highlights some key points to motivate the troops.
“There are now three lenders out there doing 95% loan to value deals below 6%,” he says. “That’s crazy. People will be able to get that 5% deposit together and more often than not it’ll be cheaper than renting.”
“Is that with a guarantor?” asks one young man.
“No they’re all normal 95% LTV deals!” Campo replies excitedly:
The 20 odd staff are working, they’re thinking and they’re wondering how this piece of information can help them write more business. Campo cracks on with the meeting, eventually bringing up everyone’s target and the obvious banter naturally ensues.
Coreco wasn’t always the well oiled machine it is today and the origin of the company is a story of overcoming adversity.
The directors of Coreco all met at Cobalt Capital, where some worked with the management team and others were consultants. When the London-based mortgage adviser went into administration on 9 March 2009, they found themselves in an uncertain world. With all the doom and gloom however, there was a small glimmer of hope.
“We were all taken by surprise,” says Ria Findlay, client relationship manager at Coreco and Most Valuable Employee award winner in 2011. “We were all shocked when we heard the news. I was relieved when the boys told me that they wanted to go off and do their own thing.”
Lowndes makes a good point.
“If you look at a graph of the FTSE over the past five years, we started at one of the lowest points,” he says. “We wanted to do things differently and prove there was another way of building a successful brokerage. If we do make mistakes, and no doubt we will, at least we know this time it is not down to anyone else. Having control of our own destiny is both liberating and scary”.
So, in the midst of what was (and still is) the longest economic downturn since the 1930s came Coreco.
“The new directors promised us that they’d be around to support us and they’re on the same floor as us, ready to handle any queries any of us have,” Findlay proudly says.
“Some of us suspected that they might migrate into their own office or huddle away but no, they’ve kept their promise and they’re with us all of the way.”
The directors of Coreco all respond in precisely the same way when I ask them about the company that brought them all together.
“It was a hard time,” says Lowndes. “We just wanted to get away from the nonsense of the previous company and do our own thing.”
All the directors here have known each other for more than five years and each one is a leader within the office.
Andrew Montlake, or Monty as he’s more affectionately known within industry circles, heads up the marketing and PR for Coreco. His activity on social media sites such as Twitter has boosted his profile and his company’s profile to such an extent that he has now become a go-to guy for when both trade and national press need a comment.
Above his desk Monty has a piece of text highlighted and pinned against the backboard of his workspace. It’s from an old news story and part of it reads “There aren’t many good private finance businesses in the industry”. It was a comment made by a prominent industry figure and Monty tells me that every morning he looks at this quote and it motivates him to make Coreco better.
It’s much needed especially as on the opposite side of the backboard lies the domain of François Taljaard aka Frankie, the director in charge of the finances at Coreco.
Frankie stands out in many ways in the office. Firstly he looks like Che Guevara as depicted by Benecio Del Toro in the 2008 film; shaggy hair, out of control goatee and a wicked smile. Secondly any conversation that involves Frankie always has a weird topic.
“They’re Indian squares!” he shouts across the floor pointing at a suspicious foil tray. “They’re delicious; I just brought them back from India.”
Findlay peeks into the container and shrieks. “It’s furry!” she says, while a brave adviser dives in to try a funny yellow block of “food”.
Half of the eyes in the office turn to the adviser while the other half is still busy in the middle of phone calls or emails. “It’s weird”, says the man in a worried tone. Across the room in the corner sits Frankie with a great big grin.
“I’m responsible for all the finances. All the money coming in and out and the day-to-day running of the cash,” Frankie says with his director cap on.
His demeanour switches straight away from casual office director to serious swift talking businessman. Everything is “something per something” all of a sudden and the scruffy director shows a new side where he’s now talking about the 70% cut-off in business during the crash.
“The traditional model was blown out of the water and even now the seasonal flow of business has now changed,” he says. “Income now needs to be generated in a different way.”
Lowndes agrees. “We’re doing it our way. We need to be reliable when a customer comes to us that we can take them through the whole journey of getting a mortgage,” he says. “It’s not about expansion, it’s not about going nuts, it’s about profitability and being reliable.”
“There’s a definite buzz about it,” adds Monty. “Through all the hassle once a deal is complete, you can see the looks on the guys faces when they receive a testimonial. You can see it, it means a lot.”
While the bulk of the advisers are working on mainstream work and are receiving their kudos, Lowndes and Monty are excited about the other flourishing parts of the business.
“We are just about to do some work on up scaling our website again,” says Monty. “It needs to be refreshed to keep our edge and we are planning to do some pretty interesting things that many other brokers would shy away from doing”.
“Harnessing the power of social media is very important to us. It’s all about pushing the boundaries as we do not want to be seen as a bland financial services company”.
“Technology is a key driver for us,” says Lowndes. “If we can do half the things we plan to do in the next few months things will get very interesting”.
Coreco recently won an account with a major international bank to provide advice and the reward is that now it operates a monthly mortgage surgery at the bank where a group of advisers go in and start the process of looking after a client.
“We’re now building our corporate relationships and word of mouth is spreading. Certainly last year we saw the change that people knew who we were and people are now coming to us saying they’ve heard of us and would like to work with us,” Lowndes says.
I’m now introduced to another director. This time it’s Rob Gill.
“I’m responsible for Coreco’s new wealth proposition Coreco Wealth and I look after our corporate introducers,” he says.
Gill is dressed as if he belongs in the City and his pedigree lends himself to that image. Nearly eight years in equity trading, Gill now looks after Coreco’s wealth as well as their corporate introducers.
“It’s early days still for our wealth proposition but the systems are now in place and we’re generating a lot of interest,” says Gill. “We’re very happy that we’ve got wealth up and running now as it was always a key area we wanted to develop.”
Gill remains humble about their achievements though. “As far as the corporate side of things is concerned, the real work is done by Ria and her team to make sure that everything goes smoothly. Winning the account is one thing, servicing it to everyone’s satisfaction is the real challenge”.
As Coreco continues to make strides, one thing Lowndes isn’t happy with is recruitment.
“There’s not enough fresh blood out there. It’s very urgent for us to get some new people in there,” says Lowndes. This is the main drive that prompted Coreco to start taking in apprentices.
This aspect is handled by another director, Roy Hardy, who heads up operations and recruitment at Coreco. “We’re looking to take on four apprentices every year,” he says.
“We believe if you take on younger people, give them a chance and pay them more than the minimum apprenticeship wage (£2.50 an hour), they can add value in the long term.”
Currently there are two apprentices at Coreco and Monty says “it’s great to see the young guys engage and learn”.
“I remember how I was when I started out,” he adds. “I would be far too nervous to ask a question in front of everyone. They’re the real future of the company.”
Lowndes, Taljaard, Montlake, Hardy, Gill together form the pillars of a company built during the harshest of conditions.
Every week they have a directors meeting and hash out their thoughts with each other such as the apprenticeship scheme.
“Rarely do I ever go in and leave feeling as if my views have no impact. It is nice to have a proper say in the running’s of a company for the first time and we usually end up at an agreeable mid-ground,” says Monty.
“I’m sick of this idea that there needs to be a single dictatorial hierarchy to run a successful business,” Lowndes adds.
Elsewhere in the company former Cobalt Capital director Julian Ingall heads up the specialist lending team. It is Coreco’s own version of the famous US Special Forces, SEAL team six, a small group called in to handle anything which falls outside of the norm.
“The problem with specialist lending is that it’s so broad,” Ingall says. “It can be anything from bridging, to large portfolio loans, to ultra high net worth clients.”
“Three years down the road and I’m delighted at where we’ve got. I’m proud to be working with those guys and I am glad I made the decision to come and join them,” he says looking out onto the office floor.
Talking to members around the office you get the sense that some look up to the specialist lending team.
“It’s mind boggling the deals they do. You can tell why they’re specialist lending,” says Tom Matthews, a 22-year old, fresh adviser Coreco recruited around five months ago.
“They were working on a case which was way over five million and they didn’t waver at all. They weren’t nervous or anxious they just worked on it like a normal case.”
Matthews definitely has a sense of awe when referring to the team. But while the specialist lending has caught Matthews’ eye, he’s caught the eye of the two front men of the operation, Montlake and Lowndes.
“Superstar.” Monty calls Matthews. “In 10 or 15 years time I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up running the business. He’s that good. He’s got knowledge, discipline and he conducts himself very well.”
Lowndes adds to that calling him “a class act”.
“In 10 years time we’ll be talking about him being one of the best that’s probably come through,” he says.
The decisions to recruit talent like Matthews, take on apprentices and launch new propositions take place during the director meetings. The product of utilising the combined vast experience of so many close-knit directors is that issues such as recruitment are solved in such novel ways.
Not locked away in their Ivory tower however, all the directors still do coal faced business as well to keep in touch with their floor staff.
This “leadership by committee” approach to running business may not be how every other business has been run. But then again Coreco isn’t every other business.
