Britannic Money chief quits in rejig

Britannic Money’s top marketer Rachel Ramsden has resigned following a restructure that has resulted in a spate of redundancies. She is moving to a rival financial company, Skipton Building Society, as head of marketing.

Britannic Money is be relaunched as the Mortgage Trust, its original name, at the end of this month. It was bought by rival mortgage company Paragon Group in June this year, which initiated the rebrand. A new brand identity has already been designed by agency WPB.

Britannic Money has undergone two rebrands since it was first named Mortgage Trust. It became First Active until 2000 when it was rebranded Britannic Money after being bought by the Britannic Group. Britannic spent &£10m on a rebranding campaign in the hope of becoming a household name. The campaign included a &£1m sponsorship of US sitcom Frasier on Channel 4.

Paragon is in consultation after announcing it was making 160 redundancies at its Epsom offices. It would not confirm how many were leaving the company’s marketing department but said that there would be compulsory redundancies.

Paragon group director of mortgages John Heron assumes overall responsibility for marketing. Masius will be the advertising agency for the entire group.

Under the new strategy, the Mortgage Trust will specialise in flexible buy-to-let mortgages, sold through intermediaries, rather than attempt to become the household brand Britannic originally envisaged.