It's as bad as expected: Yellow Brick Road just made a $34m half-year loss

Struggling mortgage broker Yellow Brick Road (ASX:YBR) has turned in a $34 million half year loss, after writing off the equivalent in assets.

In the equivalent period in 2017, it made a small profit of $253,000.

Yellow Brick Road wrote off $24m in goodwill from its two businesses, wealth management and lending, and another $4m from its customer relationships.

The total value of asset writedowns was $33.9m.

Half-year revenue slumped to $93.4m, the lowest since 2014, and it had $4.7m left in cash.

Yellow Brick Road has been under pressure for some time.

The share price has been falling since mid-2014, landing at 5.4c on Thursday evening. While the company continued to grow its revenue up until the end of the 2018 financial year, it also fell into the red at the same time.

The last six months have been extremely tough, as the tighter regulations around lending hurt as did rising lack of confidence in the industry generated by the banking Royal Commission.

A speculative takeover bid from corporate raider Mercantile Investments (AX:MVT) did not complete, but highlighted investor concerns around Yellow Brick Road’s falling performance.

The company is currently going through a strategic review, so won’t offer any guidance on what it expects for the remainder of the financial year until the end of April when that is done.