Liberty Financial dived into lending pools opened up by constraints on APRA regulated lenders over the last year, producing loan growth over the year to June 2016 of 46 per cent - more than twice that of the fastest growing banks.A doubling of loan settlements to A$2.5 billion, mostly in its core mortgage products, helped lift Liberty's loan book to $4.7 billion up from $3.2 billion.Its "consolidated profit before tax" lifted 11 per cent to $73.7 million. Return on equity was 19.2 per cent, down from 19.8 per cent in 2015 but around the same level as 2014.Liberty did not report a net profit but did elaborate on facets of its result and strategy in a rare briefing for financial media yesterday.Asked to comment on recent rumblings of a probable initial public offering, James Boyle, the chief operating officer, said there'd been no period in his more than ten years with the business that IPO rumours were not current.And the rationale for a briefing? "Branding," Boyle said, citing a wider spend on many marketing measures.The leap in volumes, Boyle said, was a function of a "once in a cycle" regulatory event - the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's tinkering with the lending goals of banks, principally the cap on growth in investor loans.A payback from Liberty's investments in retail and third party distribution, which were summed up by Boyle as fostering a "fuss free" experience; "we choose to compete on a service metric," he said, while mindful of price.The detail of group result is unlikely to mitigate expectations that the founder, Sherman Ma, may be looking for an exit via an IPO 19 years after getting into business.In the late 1990s Ma set Liberty up as a disruptor in the little-served non-conforming home loan sector. This has since broadened to a mix of prime and sub-prime residential and business loans.General insurance, through LFI Group Pty Ltd, is now part of the Liberty product mix bringing the Liberty group under APRA scrutiny, as regulator, for the first time.