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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