Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to LendInvest plc half-year results for the six months ended 30th of September, 2023. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, we ask that you please use the Raise Hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. Instructions will also follow at the time of Q&A. I would like to remind all participants that this call is being recorded. As a reminder, participants can also submit questions through the webcast page using the Ask a Question button. These will be addressed after the call. I will now hand over to Rod Lockhart, Chief Executive Officer of LendInvest plc, to start the presentation.
Good morning, and thanks for your time today and the opportunity to present our half-year results for the period ended 30th of September, 2023. This morning, I'm joined by David Broadbent and Hugo Davies. As mentioned in the RNS this morning, Dave is leaving the business in March to take up a new role, and I'd like to thank him for his support over the last six months. I wish him well for the future. Hugo, our Chief Capital Officer, who's been with LendInvest for eight years, will take on CFO responsibilities on an interim basis while we search for a permanent replacement. Hugo will be supported by Stephen Shipley, who joined the business in January. Stephen is the former CFO of Foundation Home Loans, and before that, was the CFO of Barclays Group Treasury.
The three of us will run through the slides, which will take approximately 30 minutes. We'll then be available for Q&A. I'll start by providing a summary of our performance over the period, and then Hugo will run through the strategic review and the progress we've made, in particular, focusing on the strength of our balance sheet. And then David will talk through our financial performance. And finally, I'll conclude with the outlook and longer-term opportunity. If you could flick forward one more slide, that would be great. In summary, it's been a challenging period for the business. We've been operating in a difficult market environment for us and others in our sector. But we are seeing signs of this alleviating with recent falls in five-year swap rates, and we had our highest level of buy-to-let loan applications in November, since March.
Despite the market headwind, we've made good progress on key KPIs in growing our funds under management 21% year-on-year, and our assets under management 11% year-on-year. Given the market backdrop and lower levels of transaction volumes, we've been heavily focused on the fundamentals of strengthening our balance sheet and the financial position of the business. This has involved making tough decisions, including realizing underperforming assets, in particular, with the sale of a GBP 250 million buy-to-let portfolio during the period. The sale reduced our debt, increased our cash reserves, but led to a GBP 10.7 million loss in the period. We've also been extending facilities, and post-period end, we completed a securitization of GBP 410 million of buy-to-let loans, further strengthening our cash position.
The steps we've taken have resulted in an 88% increase in cash reserves, but at the same time, they've driven a loss before tax for the period of GBP 15.1 million. In light of this performance, we're not recommending the payment of an interim dividend, but this position will be reviewed at the year-end. While it's been a disappointing period, we have strengthened our balance sheet and have strong foundations. We're now steadfastly focused on growing our lending and returning the business to profitability. Post-period end, we completed a cost-based restructuring, which we expect to support the profitability of the business in our next financial year. We've maintained the capacity in our lending teams so that as market conditions improve, we're well positioned to capitalize from the market-leading service and technology that we provide brokers and borrowers.
As we move through today's presentation, we'll go deeper into our strategy, performance and outlook, demonstrating how we're positioning ourselves for a profitable future. I'll now pass across to Hugo, who'll talk you through the market backdrop and provide more detail on the steps we've taken.
Thank you, Rod, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to present to you our strategic review for this period. Now, since our last results announcement, both the financial and economic landscape continues to be complex and uncertain. The Bank of England base rate has risen to 5.25%, its highest point since 2008, and it was as recent as just 12 months ago that financial markets expected the base rate to rise to 4.25% from 3.5%. At various points over the past year, financial markets expected the base rate to rise to 6%, and it's this volatility and expectations, coupled with a higher base rate, which has had a profound effect on the mortgage and property markets.
Naturally, as risk-free rates increase, certain markets that rely on those rates as a reference for either capital raising or hedging, have to pass on those increases to customers. This has meant, as mortgage rates have risen substantially, triggering tougher affordability tests, the number of mortgage approvals has fallen, and this is a leading indicator for wider housing activity. In 2022, there were approximately 750,000 mortgage approvals for purchases, and the expectation for 2023 is that this will fall to nearer 550,000. Estimates from UK Finance suggest that the buy-to-let market alone has contracted by about 50% in the past year, as the sector deals with the effects of higher interest cover tests, which measures the ratio of rental income to mortgage interest costs.
These shifts signal a cooling phase in the market, which have impacted our operations and broader sector dynamics. Another critical factor has been the volatility and rise in swap rates, as they play a crucial role in the pricing of fixed rate mortgages, given that we use these markets to hedge interest rate risk. These rates have been particularly unstable, reacting to a confluence of major macroeconomic events, such as military conflicts, economic data fluctuations, political uncertainties, bank failures, and more. The market has had an incredibly challenging time trying to work out what the future path of rates will be. This volatility also directly impacts our operational efficiency. What we mean by that, is that when swap rates fluctuate, we, like other lenders, need to adjust our product pricing in order to remain competitive.
This creates operational friction, challenging our ability to maintain a competitively priced and consistent product range. Catalogs need to be changed, systems updated, sales staff briefed, and stakeholders notified, not least our intermediary partners. When mortgage rates increase, in the first instance, operational capacity is created as there is less incremental demand. When mortgage rates fall, operational capacity could be restricted. Optimization, therefore, becomes difficult, given the pace at which interest rates can move. The construction sector is also facing its own set of challenges. There's been an uptick in insolvencies as property developers grapple with increased borrowing costs, having already dealt with material cost pressures associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Add in higher wage expectations as a result of the cost of living crisis and unprecedented inflation. It is not surprising that construction activity will fall to one of its lowest levels over the past decade. As a result, there has been a reduced appetite for development finance. Ongoing projects are experiencing delays, and developers' expected returns are under pressure. Our target market in this sector, experienced SME developers, will also resist flooding the market with supply when sales and wider transaction volumes have slowed, and this leads to extensions and delayed completions. Housing policy has reacted as well, with the government's 300,000 annual new home target becoming voluntary. But I must add that it isn't all doom and gloom, as Rod indicated. Since September, we have witnessed green shoots, which give rise to a level of cautious optimism.
As mentioned before, mortgage rates look to have peaked, and financial markets expect central banks to start cutting base rates in 2024. Inflation is expected to continue its downward trend off the back of falls in energy and food prices. Although it must be noted that while the labor market is showing signs consistent with expansionary monetary policy, risks are still skewed to the upside. That said, this has ultimately had the effect of lowering swap rates, with five-year swaps breaking through the 4% level. Labour's fiscal stance is broadly consistent with the status quo, and therefore a general election should not rock financial markets in the same way that ultimately caused the LDI crisis of 2022. Wholesale funding markets are supportive, and finally, house prices have been resilient. And yes, while they have fallen, they have not fallen to the extent which the market expected.
This is partly down to a higher prevalence of cash buyers, but the short-term mortgage market has provided crucial finance for both defensive and expansive strategies deployed by professional property investors and acted as a lubricant for regulated markets, too. Next slide, please. Now, I will now talk through the measures we've implemented to solidify our financial footing, mitigate risk, and support our positioning for a rebounding activity. Our first measure was an aggressive approach towards non-performing assets or assets with lower margins than what we were comfortable with. For example, we made the strategic decision to sell a GBP 250 million low-margin buy-to-let portfolio, which incurred a loss of GBP 10.7 million, as previously disclosed.
Even with tools to mitigate interest rate risk, loans originated from late Q1 2022 through to the end of 2022, were particularly exposed to this low margin dynamic, and retaining these assets on the balance sheet as a non-bank lender would have had several impacts over future periods. Not only would these assets dilute future net interest margin, wholesale funding markets would need to be compensated for the risk of funding these assets, too. This typically translates into lower, less optimal capital structures, which requires the lender to use more expensive sources of capital. This disposal mitigated that risk. It reduced our debt outstanding, increased our cash reserves, and acted as a seed portfolio to establish a new GBP 500 million off-balance sheet, separate account for mortgages with a fast-growing digital challenger bank. Next, we focused on our funding.
In this period, in addition to the GBP 500 million separate account mentioned before, we also closed a new GBP 200 million off-balance sheet separate account for short-term mortgages, a first for the business that diversifies our revenue from short-term mortgages even further. We also successfully refinanced our second retail bond with our fourth issue, which, whilst priced commensurate with prevailing interest rates, has been enhanced to better cope with current market dynamics and benefits from innovative structural improvements established by the GBP 1 billion EMTN program that we launched last year, such as reducing the company guarantee to just 20%. Last month, we were also proud to announce the successful completion of our fifth and largest securitization to date, a GBP 410 million portfolio of prime buy-to-let loans.
The transaction achieved the best pricing in this market since the summer and generated GBP 34 million in cash for the business. This allowed us to optimize our funding partnerships with Citi, National Australia Bank, Wells Fargo, and Lloyds to rightsize them for current and expected origination levels, and provided the foundations to tweak investment strategies to be better aligned with what is expected in 2024. Lastly, we addressed our operational structure. We've now restructured our headcount to below 200 people, while ring-fencing our lending teams. This restructuring has led to a reduction in payroll costs by approximately 25%, marking a significant step in optimizing our cost base while retaining our core capabilities. Next slide, please.
Now, before I hand over to Dave, who will talk through the financials, I will now conclude the strategic review by taking you through the evolution and growth of our funds under management and assets under management over this period. We've had impressive year-on-year growth of 21% in our funds under management, reaching GBP 4.2 billion, despite the various headwinds we have faced. Liquidity is extremely important to us. This increase is a result of several key transactions that have strengthened our financial standing and funding foundations. Wells Fargo entered into a syndicate with National Australia Bank to strengthen the funding base of our buy-to-let offering, and BNP Paribas entered a syndicate with HSBC and Barclays to strengthen and grow the foundations of our short-term mortgage products.
Both of these transactions successfully closed around the time of the banking crisis that ensnared financial markets in H1 of this year. A testament to the skill of our people, the quality of our loans, and ultimately providing us with the confidence to capitalize on emerging opportunities. For example, the short-term mortgage market, which is less price elastic than buy-to-let, has been incredibly resilient despite base rate increases. The proprietary technology we have deployed in this space, coupled with this additional funding firepower, has meant that we've been able to grow our presence and build great momentum in a sector where the margins are stronger.
Following the success of our GBP 1 billion managed forward flow account for JP Morgan, which has already culminated in two highly successful securitizations, we were delighted to welcome Chetwood Financial as a new partner with a GBP 500 million separate account for our buy-to-let and residential mortgages that are expected to be mostly funded by savings and deposits. This means that we now have three different funding sources for buy-to-let and residential mortgages, which will allow us to adapt our strategy quicker in the face of uncertainty and mitigate the ongoing risk of operational friction. These major partnerships underscore our ability to secure funding from a diverse range of high-quality institutions. This variety of funding and level of diversification have supported our business with agility in product and pricing strategies in recent months.
This flexibility has been crucial, particularly in a market where others with less adaptive funding models have had to withdraw periodically and therefore arguably face greater reputational risk. Now, turning to assets under management, we've achieved 11% year-on-year growth, with the loan book reaching GBP 2.7 billion. Our mortgages division, AUM, has increased by 10% year-on-year. Following the launch of our residential mortgage product, we've seen AUM here increase from GBP 23 million at period end to GBP 41 million by the end of November. We're excited about the prospects for this product, which is positioned well from a pricing perspective, is not weighed down by a large back book subject to refinancing risk in 2024, and is supported by deep funding, great technology, and talented people. AUM, in short-term mortgages, has grown 44% year-on-year.
Short-term mortgages provide an alternative source of funding for homeowners who are in a chain, buy-to-let landlords who do not want to fix for five years today, property investors who are opportunistically buying at auction, and SME developers who have reached practical completion. Furthermore, a core part of our strategy is to minimize credit risk exposure by maximizing lending originated and managed for 3rd parties, which is crucial in challenging market conditions. We've made significant progress in this regard, with a substantial reduction in balance sheet exposures in the first half, building on the progress made in 2022. These figures underscore our resilience and adaptability in a dynamic market environment. I'd like to thank you for your time, and I will now hand over to David to run through our financials.
Thank you, Hugo. Good morning, everybody. So in this section, let me talk you through some of the key features of the first half results. I'll also pay particular attention to impairment, administrative expenses, and also the balance sheet. Let's start with the P&L. So as Hugo just very eloquently talked through, we've seen good growth in assets under management. Obviously, that has a positive impact in terms of recurring servicing fees that we earn on those assets. However, what we have also seen in the first half of this year is a contraction in new lending. So that reduced year-on-year by around 28%, and that's had a negative drag on the revenue-earning capability of the business.
So in terms of what that means from a P&L perspective, you can see that net interest income in the first half was GBP 17.7 million lower than the prior year period, and that really reflects two main factors. So firstly, the prior year results did include a GBP 9.2 million gain, which was realized on the settlement of certain derivative financial instruments. But after taking account of that, the big feature there is the fact that the average value of loans on balance sheet, on which we earn net interest income, was down by around 40% year-on-year, so hence the reduction in net interest income. From a net fee income perspective, that's increased by GBP 0.7 million, and you can see a GBP 7 million gain on derecognition of financial assets.
So the key item there was the GBP 10.8 million profit on the sale of the residual interests in the Mortimer 21 securitization, which we completed in April. However, as both Rod and Hugo have articulated, we took a substantial loss on the sale of the underperforming GBP 250 million loan portfolio of GBP 10.7 million, which obviously had a material impact on the first half results. Admin expenses, they increased by GBP 4 million, includes sort of circa GBP 1.2 million non-recurring items, but that's an item I'll cover in a bit more detail later on. And impairment increased by GBP 5.2 million. Again, go into that in some detail in this section as well. So if you can move on to the next slide.
Just before going into impairments and costs, just a brief word on segmental analysis. So you may remember, at the end of last year, we announced that we were going to report the business on two new segmental divisions. So the mortgages division is where we operate our buy-to-let product, the specialist residential products, and also the sort of higher volume, lower value elements of our short-term lending also sit within that division. Capital division, that's focused primarily on development finance and more complex structured lending, so that would typically include the higher value bridging lending that the business does. So this slide looks to split the first half results across those two divisions and also includes the central costs that are not directly attributable to those two divisions.
Unfortunately, we don't, we don't have prior year information on this basis, but we will be reporting on these segments going forward. So over time, you know, we will build up that transparent track record in terms of how each part of the business is performing. Suffice to say at this stage, so in terms of the first half, the mortgages division made a GBP 2.3 million contribution to the results, whereas the capital division suffered a loss in the first half, which was largely driven by impairment, which I'll come on to now on the next slide, please. So just before going into the numbers, if it's okay, just a brief overview in terms of the impairment provisioning process, which I would say is very standard, very robust, very prudent, effectively comprises two main parts.
So the first part is a statistical analysis that's performed on each of the product lines. So that will take into account all of our historical performance data and the credit risk profile of the loan book at the period end, the borrowers as well. And included within the statistical models, there are also a number of economic scenarios that are factored into that, which are currently weighted towards downside scenarios. The other part of the process is what's called individual assessments. So these would typically be employed in respect of larger, more complex positions, where the credit team will go into the detail of individual loans, individual borrowers, assessing the status of that borrowing and forming a view on what is expected to be recovered on those loans.
What you can see here, we've split the, so the, for the mortgages division, you can see a relatively small impairment charge of GBP 0.7 million. Of that, just GBP 0.2 million is based on individual assessments. The vast majority is related to statistical impairment provisioning, which is colored in blue. For capital, a very different picture. You can see a much higher charge, GBP 6.4 million, and virtually all of that is driven by the individual assessment process, which relates to a handful of individual borrowers. Let me go through that in a bit more detail again. Again, move, starting in the next slide. So let me explain what this is showing.
So in terms of the chart, so the bars represent the value of the loans that we've issued in each of the years that we show in the chart, and that's referenced against the left-hand axis. So for financial year 2021, you can see around GBP 500 million of lending that was shown here. In terms of the color coding, the blue element effectively shows the lending that has either been redeemed, settled, or has moved off balance sheet, and therefore, the balance, the yellow segment of the bars represents effectively the loans that we still carry credit risk on our balance sheet for. The black line is the forecast expected credit losses for that vintage of lending, and that's referenced against the right-hand axis. So in terms of this particular chart, which is for the mortgages division, a couple of things to note.
On high, so high balance of lending for this division. This represents over three quarters of the loans that still sit on balance sheet. However, this is very much high volume, low value, low credit risk lending, and you can see that in the expected credit losses, which I would say, you know, probably looking at a run rate of around 20-25 basis points for the mortgages division. Remember, the mortgage division is heavily supported by the proprietary technology platform, so that plays a key part in terms of the underwriting process, pulling in thousands of different credit data points for every individual loan that we underwrite, and that also feeds into the overall credit assessment. So moving on to the capital division on the next slide.
So probably worth saying, this is, you know, same format, same data, same scale. So what you can see is that the volume of origination is lower in the capital division. As said, this is typically lower volume, higher value, more complex, higher credit risk lending, and you can see that in terms of the expected loss rates, which again, I would say probably run at between 100 and 150 basis points. But remember, because this is higher credit risk lending, we obviously charge the borrower more for these loans than we do in the mortgages division. In terms of the charge for the period, probably two or three key things to note. Firstly, 70% of the charge in the period related to just five borrowers, where we performed individual assessments.
So I think when you look at the charge for the period, it's probably fair to say that that's been caused by idiosyncratic factors on a small number of positions. It doesn't reflect an overall systemic problem with the underlying portfolio. Second thing to note is, as you've heard already, we've taken a very robust approach in terms of realizing underperforming assets in the first half, and over GBP 3 million of the charge in the period related to positions where we've accelerated the debt recovery process, either by selling the loan or taking security and enforcement activities.
That's really based on the philosophy that, in particular, in, you know, in a tough market backdrop, it's better to realize value today rather than to sort of be more passive and hope that you're gonna realize more value in the future by riding something out. So we've just been very proactive and focused on realizing non-performing assets, generating cash. And a lot of that activity is focused on working out older positions, so the vast majority of the charge relates to lending that was issued in 2022 or prior, and, you know, as you can see from the chart, those are cohorts that are very, very mature and got very little credit exposure left on those particular cohorts of lending.
So overall, I would say yes, you know, we, we've seen a, an increase in the impairment charge in the first half, but that largely reflects timing issues with a small number of positions, and should not be viewed as a step up in the impairment charge going forward. So let's move on to costs on the next slide. I think, so both Rod and Hugo talked through this. As I said, we saw an increase in administrative expenses in the first half of the year. Like many businesses, our biggest cost is people related, and it's an area where we've taken sort of very swift and decisive action. So in terms of the chart, so you can see in blue, the number of employees that have been in the business from 2021 through to the end of November.
And then the yellow bar shows the equivalent annualized payroll costs for those employees. And as you can see, you know, the, we're showing the position post-restructuring at the end of November. From a headcount perspective, we've removed around 27% of our employees. So at the start of the period, there were 275, and now we've got just under 200. And in terms of sort of payroll savings, that will reduce our payroll bill by around GBP 5 million per annum. As Hugo said, and it's worth reiterating, the restructuring exercise didn't touch our origination capacity, so that remains intact. You know, and hopefully we'll see an improvement in market conditions, and we'll benefit from that. Rather, the restructuring is focused on central costs and technology in particular.
So obviously, we've invested a lot in our market-leading proprietary technology platform over the last few years. That development is largely complete, so we don't really need to invest the same amount going forward. And I think this, as I say, you know, decisive action taken, this will help us reduce administrative expenses. We've got a bit more work to do in terms of 3rd-party costs, which we're on with, and the overall aim is to ensure that administrative expenses reduce in the next financial year, so FY 2025, to a level similar to that that we reported in the previous financial year, so FY 2023. Let me now move on to balance sheet on the next slide, please.
As you've heard, lots of difficult decisions and action taken to strengthen the balance sheet and reduce the risk profile in the first six months. Hopefully, you'll see some of the fruits of that on this slide. To start with, the proportion of assets that are on the balance sheet as a measure of sort of our risk exposure, that's reduced by 14 percentage points since the beginning of this period. From a net asset perspective, you'll see that's dropped since the year-end, but that mainly reflects the payment of the final dividend for last year. Net assets have actually increased year-on-year, which reflects an underlying increase in the value of loans and advances.
And I think, you know, the detail behind that is in the appendix, where we show the balance sheet. But if I was to really boil that down and say, what do the net assets for LendInvest represent? Around GBP 30 million of that are liquid cash resources, so, you know, very, very much dry powder. And a similar amount probably reflects our investments, our net carry in the different warehouses and related funding structures. So, you know, obviously, sort of real value from that perspective. You've heard about sort of focus on realizing non-performing assets. So that's helped us generate a really healthy free cashflow in six months of GBP 35 million, and that, in turn, has led to a substantial increase in cash and cash equivalents, so up 88% since the beginning of the period.
As Hugo articulated, the most recent securitization will improve our liquid cash resources by around GBP 34 million. Although some of that will probably be used to repay 3rd-party debt, but that will definitely be supportive. He and his team are sort of focused on a potential sale of residual interests in that securitization as an upcoming transaction. That will bring a triple benefit, so should generate more liquid cash resource. We expect it to produce a pre-tax profit in excess of GBP 10 million, and we should see the benefits of that in the second half of FY 2024. It will also reduce the credit risk exposure that we carry on the balance sheet, which I will talk through in a bit more detail on the next slide, please.
So what we thought we'd show here is the credit risk exposure in GBP that we carry on the balance sheet compared to assets under management. And for, you know, for interest, we thought we'd show that, how that position has evolved since the first reported results post the IPO in 2021 through to today, with the position at the end of November. And what you can see over that period is that assets under management have increased substantially over that period by 46%. However, over the same period, the credit risk exposure has actually reduced by 52%. Now, obviously, our big driver of that has been the transactions that we've announced in this period's results and prior periods. Also reflects some of the structuring benefits that Hugo and his team have worked hard to achieve.
So as referenced earlier, we've seen the parent company guarantee on the retail bonds drop from 100% down to 20%, which obviously had a beneficial impact. And overall, you know, the combination of structures meant that as a percentage of AUM, credit risk exposure has dropped by, dropped from 10%, three years ago, to just 3% at the end of November. So overall, let's say, you know, so some key actions taken in the period, and I think we're seeing some strengthening of the business in terms of balance sheet and risk exposure as a result. And I hand back to Rod to talk through the outlook and long-term opportunity.
Thanks, David. I'll now pick up and run through the long-term opportunity and move on to the outlook as well. If you could flip to the next slide, that'd be great. Our market-leading proprietary technology platform is fundamental to the service proposition that we're able to provide to brokers and borrowers. During the period, we did continue to invest in technology, including our specialist residential proposition and our recently launched new buy-to-let broker portal. The feedback from brokers on our technology has been overwhelmingly positive, and we're now rolling this out across a wider broker universe. This final piece in terms of the broker portal reduces our dependence on 3rd-party systems but also has the benefit of reducing our operating costs.
It also facilitates product switches between our short-term lending and our buy-to-let mortgages, and facilitates the cross-selling of the different types of mortgage products that we have. The platform is now well-placed to directly support the growth of our lending across all our mortgage products as we look forward. This provides us not only with operating efficiency as we grow our lending, but it also we do this without significantly growing our operating expenditure. Recognizing the maturity of our technology platform and that the core technology is now complete, we've completed a significant scale back of our investment into technology over the last few months. If you could flick through to the next slide, please. One of the fundamental strengths of our business is the breadth of different types of property finance that we provide. Our range of products adds to our resilience.
When one product is challenged, another can pick up the slack, and we've seen this recently, as Hugo pointed out, with our short-term mortgages growing by 44% in the last 12 months, while our buy-to-let and development lending growth has been more muted. Our ability to develop and bring new products to take advantage of opportunities in the market is also a key strength. Our most significant recent example of this is our move into the residential mortgage market. We launched our product on a beta test basis at the end of 2022. After a successful start, distribution was gradually rolled out to the point where the proposition was launched to the whole of the market in April 2023.
Since then, we've continued to grow our broker partners and as demonstrated recently by the onboarding of L&G Mortgage Club, the largest mortgage club in the U.K. We've continued to improve our product offering, targeting customers who have more complex income, including self-employed borrowers, professionals, and key workers. Since launch, we've issued GBP 249 million of decisions in principle. We've received GBP 138 million of signed applications, and as at the end of November, we had AUM for the product of GBP 41 million. The early development of the specialist residential proposition has gone to plan, and we're well placed to build on this through the remainder of FY 2024 and into FY 2025. We could move on to the next slide, please. We set out on this slide the robust foundations on which forms the bedrock of our business.
These elements are not just the strengths we're leaning on in challenging times, but also the drivers of growth and of our future growth and success. One of our key strengths is our capital markets operation and our ability to secure funding from a diverse range of high-quality investors and institutions. This has underpinned our continued growth in FUM by 21% to GBP 4.17 billion, and provides us significant headroom to increase our lending as market conditions improve. The different types of funding that we have access to, including forward flow arrangements, allow us to be agile from a product and pricing perspective. We have a proven track record in scaling new lending products, and our launch into residential mortgages is progressing to plan.
With the disruption in the mortgage market, as Hugo pointed out, we believe this is an opportune time to launch a new proposition, providing a simpler, more transparent process for customers not well served by high street lenders. The early development proposition, as we pointed out, is developing in line with plan, and we're expecting to build on this over the coming periods. While in this period, we focused on the fundamentals of strengthening our balance sheet, we're now steadfastly focused on growing our lending and returning the business to profitability. We're pricing all of our products to deliver margin, and our service proposition allows us to compete without needing to lead on price. Our expansive broker network, excellent reputation for service excellence, are invaluable assets for us. Finally, our technology and innovation sets us apart.
We don't just use technology, we're at the forefront of integrating cutting-edge technology solutions into our operations to improve our customer experience. We could please move on to the outlook slide, please. We're seeing early signs of a more positive outlook. Swap rates have fallen, and improving capital market sentiment was reflected in both the strong pricing and demand for our recent RMBS securitization. The prospect of a stable and even falling interest rate environment is expected to have a positive impact on our business. But as we look forward, our primary focus is on increasing our lending and steering the business back to profitability. We're seeing a pickup in buy-to-let mortgage loan applications, with November being the highest month for loan applications since March.
Our new buy-to-let portal will support lending growth through product transitions, cross-selling our mortgage products, and our residential proposition is starting to contribute to our growth. Since the period end, we've completed a cost-based restructuring that's reduced the headcount to less than 200 employees. Importantly, Dave and Hugo pointed out, we're well placed to take advantage of the market backdrop as it improves, as we've maintained our capacity for lending. We expect the benefit of the restructuring to come through in FY 20 25, coupled with further reductions in 3rd-party costs, we expect admin expenses to return to a level reported in FY 2023. In line with previous securitizations, we're exploring a potential sale of residual interests in our most recent Mortimer 23 transaction.
This is likely to be completed in the second half of this financial year and is expected to generate a pre-tax profit of at least GBP 10 million. We then expect to see the benefits of the growth and cost reduction strategy, hopefully coupled with a more positive market backdrop, to have a positive impact on performance, with a view to the business returning to profitability in the second half of next year. Thank you for taking the time to listen to our presentation. We're now happy to take questions.
We will now start the Q&A. If you wish to ask a question, please use the Raise Hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. We'll take our first question from Rae Maile at Panmure Gordon. Please unmute your line and ask your question.
Morning, Rod. I wonder if you can give us an update on your competitive positioning with respect to pricing, both in buy-to-let, but I guess most particularly in your specialist homeowner product.
Yeah, of course. Thanks for the question, Rae. In terms of buy-to-let, as you know, and as we pointed out in previous updates, we've been uncompetitive from a buy-to-let pricing perspective for some period, as we were accessing wholesale funding, when the key price leaders in the market were accessing retail deposits, and there was a significant difference between the two. And that's been a significant drag on our lending for buy-to-let over the last 12-18 months. Now, with the new Chetwood funding that Hugo pointed out, and also with, I guess, a more normalized position where retail funding has continued to increase.
As base rates increase, savings rates are continuing to increase, but of course, we're now seeing swap rates fall. We're seeing a more normal environment, where capital markets can compete more reasonably alongside retail savings deposits. As a result, we have significantly more competitive, better competitive buy-to-let products today compared to a competition than we did six, 12 months ago. That's one of the key drivers that we pointed out in the presentation, leading to our highest level of loan applications in November since March. So we're in a much better position from a relative pricing perspective in the buy-to-let space. The.
I would reiterate, though, as we pointed out in the presentation, our offering in the buy-to-let space is a service offering to brokers and borrowers. We don't need to lead on price to generate the volumes that we target for the business. In terms of the residential proposition, we as we pointed out in the presentation, focus on serving the a more, I guess, a more underserved element of the the borrower universe. So people with more complex income, you know, they can go to other lenders to borrow, but they're typically specialist lenders rather than high street lenders. And our proposition for that product is in line with key key lenders in that space, such as Kensington or Pepper Money as well.
So we have a competitive product in line with other specialist lenders, and we're comfortable with the positioning of that product.
Thanks very much.
Our next question is from Michael Hill at Cavendish. Please unmute your line and ask your question.
Great. Thank you. Absolutely, very good to see the specialist homeowner product scaling up over the past year. I was just wondering, is there much more that you'd need to do on the technology side to move more into the mainstream residential market at some point? Or is that really just an issue of timing as to anything that could be attractive?
Thanks, Michael. It's a great, great, great question. So I think the proposition that we've built for that market is for specialist borrowers. The specialist space is more, I guess, more complex. You need more data points in order to be able to underwrite the loan, compared to the High Street space, which is more of an automated scorecard lend. So most of what we've built will more than sufficiently serve the mainstream market at some point in the future. There is some further development. We would need to develop an automated scorecard for that space. So there is some further development, but what we've built in the specialist space is directly applicable.
I think as we pointed out in previous updates, we had an independent research report done on our specialist residential platform and compared it to both other specialist lenders, as well as the mainstream lenders. The level of automation, particularly for the underwriters and the data that we're pulling from multiple sources, was an area where we scored very highly in comparison to legacy systems and from other lenders.
Perfect. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please use the Raise Hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. Our next question is from Gary Greenwood at Shore Capital. Please unmute your line and ask your question.
Oh, hi. Thanks for taking my question. It's just a follow-up, really, on the technology. We see that scenario that you've highlighted as being important, but also an area where you've reduced headcount quite significantly. I'm just trying to understand to what extent the sort of headcount reduction would have happened anyway, because the platform's become more mature, and to what extent it was a decision that was taken on the back of the challenging backdrop. Then just to take that one step further, therefore, what capabilities has that removed? Or if you look at it another way, what things would you have invested and developed in that you now aren't going to do, as a result of that?
Gary, thank you for the question. It's fair to say that it's a combination of the two points, but we are fortunate that the development of our technology had reached a level of maturity. So, the big investment that we've made in technology over the last couple of years has been the investment into the residential mortgage proposition, which we completed the bulk of that investment towards the beginning of the calendar year. Now, once we'd completed that project, we did actually start scaling back the technology team at that point. So we saw some scaling back of our technology investment on the completion of that product.
As the results, profitability has tracked behind where we've wanted it to be over the last six months, we've taken the decision, we took the decision to scale back our investment in technology to better protect the cash position of the business and future profitability. And again, we are fortunate that that's timed with the release of our Buy-to-Let portal, which for us was, I guess, the major internal piece that we were looking to plug in our mortgages technology platform to reduce dependence on a 3rd-party system, but also critically bring all of our mortgage products into a single system and enhance the experience for brokers and borrowers.
So we're fortunate in the timing of that project, combining with the reduction in investment. I think as we look forward, we continue to have technology and capacity to continue to make investment in technology. So you know, that capacity still exists in the business, but clearly on a much reduced scale. In terms of the pipeline and future iterations of other projects, we continue to iterate and improve our projects, but we're not looking to do any major tech development projects in the short and medium term, like the residential mortgage proposition or the Buy-to-Let broker portal.
Effectively, some of those sort of longer term major projects have been pushed out into the medium term, but we do have capacity to improve and iterate the products that we already have.
That's great. Very comprehensive. Thank you.
There are no further questions on the webinar. I will now hand over to Rod Lockhart for closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for your time this morning and the opportunity to talk you through our results. If you do have follow-up questions, please do reach out to our investor relations email address. I do look forward to seeing you all in the new year, and hope you and your families have a great holiday season. Thank you.