Another contractor that wrote business for finconnect, the national mortgage aggregator arm of dealer group Count Financial, has resurfaced at national aggregation group Outsource Financial (Outsource).
Former finconnect senior lending manager Hayley Smith is the third contractor to exit the business and join former finconnect general manager and current Outsource chief executive Tanya Sale, who launched the business on 1 February this year.
Former finconnect direct writer Carmel Cappelleri and former finconnect lending manager Andrea Tassis had also come on board as directors and major shareholders.
Sale exited finconnect in December 2009, not long before Count chief executive Marianne Perkovic left to join Colonial First State.
Sale and her team of lending managers joined Count from the national aggregation group LawFund in October 2006.
While Smith, Cappelleri and Tassis were paid commissions by finconnect and had received performance awards from the group, Count chair Barry Lambert did not acknowledge that finconnect had lost staff to Outsource as he said they were freelance contractors.
Lambert said finconnect was being managed without Sale being replaced and that a review of the business’ operations would take place when new Count chief executive Andrew Gale commenced in the position at the end of March.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Count announced that confidential discussions with Mortgage Choice about combining their respective mortgage businesses had been called off without any agreement being reached.
Count would now look to increase finconnect’s resources to ensure all Count franchisees who wanted to outsource their home loan referrals would have a finconnect lending manager in their area, a statement from Count said.
“Should finconnect not be able to fill any gaps in its coverage, it will look at entering into arrangements with mortgage broking groups located in those areas,” it said.
