LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Shares in Mortgage Advice Bureau jumped on Tuesday after the AIM-listed firm overcame a turbulent year in the UK housing market to post a surge in full-year revenues.
Updating on trading ahead of its final results, MAB said full-year revenues had risen 16% to £143m in 2019, with "strong" organic revenue growth of 11% on an underlying basis. Pre-tax profits were in line with management expectations.

The total number of advisers at the year-end was 1,457, a 20% increase on the previous year.

Figures published by trade body UK Finance on Monday revealed that gross mortgage lending in the residential market fell 1.1% year-on-year in 2019, as the uncertain political climate unnerved consumers.

MAB said: "Activity in the housing market was impacted by the continuing political and economic uncertainties associated with Brexit, particularly in the earlier part of 2019, and we saw a drop in underlying average annual revenue per adviser for the core MAB business of 3%."

Productivity had started to improve during the second half, however.

"We expect the UK general election result, along with the many focused initiatives that MAB has in place, including process efficiencies and lead generation, to generate growth in revenue per adviser in 2020, irrespective of the level of activity in the broader market," it added.

Chief executive Paul Brodnicki said: "MAB has delivered another strong performance despite the prolonged political and economic uncertainties throughout 2019. We continue to deliver on our strategy to grow our market share in all conditions by investing to ensure sustainable growth while maintaining a strong financial position."

Paul McGinnis, analyst at Shore Capital, said the trading update was in line with expectations. "As such, we do not expect to change to forecasts, and regard he company's performance as highly resilient in a 2019 housing market which has provided minimal underlying growth in either lending of transactions," he said.

At 1100 GMT, shares in MAB were trading 11% higher at 770.0p.

MAB is due to publish full-year results for 2019 on 24 March.

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