OakNorth has joined HSBC and Investec in a senior lending club backing BetterHome Group’s acquisition of Mortgage Support Services Ltd, the parent company of Stonebridge.
The transaction will support BetterHome Group’s further expansion in the UK mortgage market and follows its 2024 investment in Josewin, the parent company of HLPartnership.
Founded in 1988, Stonebridge supports more than 1,400 advisers across over 700 appointed representative firms. It acts as FCA regulatory principal for the network and provides compliance infrastructure, lender and insurer panel access, business development support and training.
The business also operates its proprietary Revolution technology platform, which is used by appointed representative firms for case management, compliance monitoring and client servicing.
BetterHome Group, founded by Rudi Botha, is a South Africa-based homeownership platform with operations spanning home finance, insurance, real estate and property technology.
The acquisition of MSS is intended to create a top-three UK intermediary mortgage network alongside HLPartnership, with more than 2,600 advisers, 1,200 firms and over £30 billion of annual mortgage lending.
Stonebridge and HLPartnership will continue to operate as separate networks, retaining their respective brands, propositions and cultures.
Rudi Botha (pictured), chief executive of BetterHome Group, said: “We had a tight timeline on this transaction and needed a lending club that could move decisively without sacrificing rigour.
“Our businesses – BetterHome, HLPartnership and Stonebridge – are entrepreneurial by nature, so working with a bank that understands and supports entrepreneurs has been a great fit.
“OakNorth went from credit approval to executed documents in a single week, and the quality of engagement from the team throughout was genuinely impressive.
“They understood what we’re building, asked the right questions and got on with it. That’s exactly the kind of banking partnership we want alongside us as we scale this platform in the UK.”
Mark Challis, debt finance director at OakNorth, said: “Stonebridge has built something that’s very difficult to replicate – a market-leading compliance reputation, a proprietary technology platform with over two decades of development behind it, and an adviser network that grows and retains at better rates than any of its peers.
“The structural backdrop for this transaction is also compelling: c.70% of UK mortgage lending is now intermediated, nearly all of it on an advised basis, and the ongoing migration of smaller Directly Authorised firms into AR networks – accelerated by Consumer Duty and increasing regulatory complexity – continues to grow the addressable market for scaled network operators.
“Rudi and the BHG team bring real ambition and deep expertise in this market. We’re very pleased to be part of the financing consortium supporting this next chapter.”
