City briefs: Virgin Money UK; Mobile Tornado; and more

Virgin Money UK has reported a strong performance as it releases a first quarter 2022 trading update today.

The bank’s unsecured lending grew 3% to £5.6bn driven by growth in credit cards from increased activity and new digital propositions

Mortgages decreased 0.5% to £57.8bn, while business lending dropped (2.2)% to £8.3bn.

The company says its reduction of its store network announced in September is still in progress, with 28 closures now completed since quarter four 2021, cutting the company’s footprint from 162 to 134 branches as if the end of January.

David Duffy, chief executive officer: said: “Virgin Money’s performance in the first quarter has been strong.

“Our balance sheet is performing well, asset quality remains robust and we have increased guidance on net interest margin for 2022.

“We are optimistic about the pace of recovery of the UK economy based on growing consumer and business confidence, underpinned by lower unemployment.”

 “We’ve continued our strong delivery of new digital propositions, including the launch of our fee-free digital business current account and innovative new unsecured lending products, with more to come later this year.”

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Mobile Tornado, which provides resource management mobile solutions to the enterprise market, expects its unaudited revenues for the six months to 31 December 2021 to be about £1.29m with an EBITDA loss of £30,000.

Full year revenues for 2021 are expected to be around £2.52m, with an EBITDA loss of approximately £20,000.

Despite the continuing impact of COVID-19 across all of the Harrogate-based Group’s main markets during 2021, its directors note recurring revenues remained stable at about £2.07m (2020: £2.04m).

And non-recurring revenues were approximately £0.45m compared to £0.49m in 2020.

The firm’s full year trading update adds: “The Board were disappointed to lose a customer in Canada, as announced on 1 December 2021.

“The loss of this customer has created a shortfall as the company moves into the new financial year and the directors and employees are working hard to bridge this gap, through further operational efficiencies, and renewed efforts to close out deals that have stalled as a result of the disruption caused by COVID-19.

“The company is also exploring new routes to market, to ensure its enhanced proposition is given the opportunity to deliver its full potential.”

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The Property Franchise Group (TPFG) says it achieved a robust performance in 2021 through organic growth, a very active residential housing market and the acquisition of York-based Hunters Property, which completed in March 2021.

In its trading update for the year ended 31 December 2021, TPFG says its revenue increased 119% to £24.1m (2020: £11.0m).

The number of Group offices increased by 72% to 591 (2020: 343), including 209 Hunters offices and the Group was managing 74,000 rental properties as of 31 December 2021 (2020: 58,000) with much of the growth through the year coming from the acquisition of Hunters.

Chief executive officer, Gareth Samples, said: “We have built a fantastic senior management team across the Group with an incredible combined knowledge and experience of the market.

“The value of their guidance and support can be seen reflected in the fact that we are seeing more and more people interested in joining our franchise network, as well as existing franchisees wishing to expand their representation.

 “We’ve also made significant strides forward against each of our strategic priorities this year, which are vital in underpinning our ongoing success no matter how the external conditions develop.”