Lighthouse shines with first profit
Lighthouse Group made a profit of 0.1m in the second half of last year, its first profit since being set up five years ago.
The firm has seen a loss of 1.3m in 2003 reduced to a 0.9m loss in 2004.
It lost 1m in the first half of last year but it recorded a profit of 0.1m in the second half.
The group also says that it sustained profitability month by month from July to December in 2004.
There was 16 per cent growth in turnover to 26.5m last year following successful integrations of Personal Group Holdings, the introduction of Lighthouse Corporate Benefits, and the acquisition of Broadstone IFA.
Lighthouse’s net assets stand at 3.5m, with 2.5m in cash and no debt, which it says is the result of cost reductions over the last year, surrounding the acquisition of RJ Temple, re-engineering the business, moving from Brighton to Exeter and streamlining marketing expenditure.
Key moves last year included introducing Light-houseXpress – an e-trading platform reducing advisers’ timescales and paperwork, and further development of Lighthouse Steps, an electronic delivery channel, est-ablished with Friends Pro- vident, Standard Life, Abbey, Skandia, Norwich Union, F&C and Scottish Equitable.
Lighthouse has refined its mortgage offering, setting up Lighthouse Loan, a white-label Trigold platform, allowing over 250 IFAs to offer mortgage advice since M-Day.
Lighthouse is committed to staying independent and offering whole of market advice. Executive chairman David Hickey says: “Despite a tough marketplace Light-house Group has performed well, especially during the second half of 2004. This was due to growth in productivity from our advisers while also keeping costs tight.”
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