moneyQuest in the news
Ex-Egg team take over moneyQuest
finextra
17 March 2008
A group of
former Egg employees, led by Paul Gratton, have taken a controlling stake in
direct mortgage broker MoneyQuest. Terms of the acquisition have not been
disclosed.
Gratton has been
named moneyQuest's executive director and will be joined by a team he worked
with on the launch of Egg and HSBC's virtual bank first direct.
Gratton started
his career at the UK's Midland Bank - which was bought out by HSBC - and was
part of the group that created First Direct, where he was financial services
director.
From there he
went on to play an integral part in the start up team that ultimately became
Egg. Gratton was COO when Egg launched in 1998 and become CEO in January 2001.
He stepped down
from Egg in January 2006, a year before the Internet bank was sold by
Prudential to Citi.
Gratton is
joined at moneyQuest by several former Egg colleagues, including Simon Jackson
who has been named chief operating officer. Like Gratton, Jackson began his
career in branch banking with Midland Bank and at HSBC where he ran the card
services operation. He joined Egg in 1998, ultimately ending up running its
back office operation.
Andy Thomson
joins moneyQuest as director of marketing and strategy. Thomson joined First
Direct from HSBC in 1988, where he was responsible for the strategic
development and commercial management of the mortgage, unsecured lending and
debt protection portfolios of First Direct. In 1998 he joined the Prudential as
part of the Egg launch team and held a number of roles including launch manager
for the Egg card, head of customer proposition and head of lending and
payments.
Tony Lynch,
former group financial controller of Egg, joins moneyQuest as finance director,
while Darren Fox - whose previous roles include a stint at Egg Banking - is
sales director.
The new team
will work with moneyQuest's existing managing director Paul Reynolds. However
the company's co-founders Steve and Derek Pollard have resigned from the
business as directors.
Commenting on
the move, Gratton says: "Our experience is that in these uncertain
times for mortgage customers the reassurance and expertise provided by a good
broker is in great demand. We believe that by combining our skills we can
ensure we provide the best brokerage services."
source: finextra, March 2008
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