Former Conservative Party treasurer Lord Stanley Fink, reality television personality Gillian McKeith, and a clutch of England rugby players are among the eclectic group of borrowers that took out loans from Market Financial Solutions before its collapse.
MFS, which fell into administration last month amid fraud allegations, has already drawn scrutiny for its questionable lending standards because of the hundreds of mortgages it provided to a Bangladeshi official subsequently accused of corruption.
But Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, a former land minister in Bangladesh, is not the only MFS borrower who has faced accusations of financial crimes, according to FT analysis of loans extended by the group. Other risky customers — along with high-profile figures who have not been accused of any wrongdoing — were able to secure loans from the London-headquartered group owned by Paresh Raja and his wife.
MFS’s collapse into administration last month sent shockwaves through Wall Street, which was already jittery about the risks of asset-backed lending following the twin implosions last year of US companies Tricolor and First Brands Group. There are concerns that other “cockroaches” — as JPMorgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon called the twin failures — may be lurking.
The UK financial regulator is now investigating MFS, which it supervised for compliance with rules regarding money laundering and terrorist financing, while Raja is subject to a worldwide freezing order obtained by creditors.
A review of hundreds of mortgages MFS provided before its collapse shows that its borrowers included an Indian property developer whose premises were later raided as part of a money-laundering and fraud investigation, as well as several British TV and sports stars.
MFS also provided a loan to a property company linked to a man who had recently stood trial for allegedly laundering money for a family member of a notorious London crime syndicate, the FT previously reported.
The lender’s habit of extending mortgages to buyers with heavily scrutinised financial records and political ties, and whose businesses have faced insolvency proceedings from creditors, also raises concerns about the due diligence of the large banks and private credit firms that funded its lending. The Bank of England is among those now asking questions.
Financial institutions including Barclays, Jefferies and an asset-backed lending unit of private capital firm Apollo Global Management are among MFS creditors that are now scrambling to figure out what their collateral is actually worth, after accusing the mortgage provider of “double-pledging” assets and claiming creditors could face a £1.3bn shortfall.
MFS typically provided short-term mortgages against high-end properties and once boasted it could “deliver loans as large as £50mn in as little as three days”.
Among those who took advantage of its services was a company, SRC Property Development, part-owned by Fink, once nicknamed the “godfather” of the British hedge fund industry for his time as boss of Man Group. Fink told the FT the loan had been fully repaid.
Fink was not the only lord on MFS’s books. MFS wrote several mortgages to Lord Iqbal Ali Khan, a London property investor who goes by the title “Lord” on official filings, even though Debrett’s, which publishes a comprehensive guide to the British aristocracy, told the FT “there is no one of that name recorded among the Hereditary or Life Peers, nor anyone entitled to use the courtesy title of Lord”. Khan did not respond to requests for comment.
The former Channel Four presenter McKeith and the England rugby players Luke Cowan-Dickie and Ellis Genge also took out bridging loans from MFS-linked entities. All three did not respond to requests for comment.
But as well as these high-profile customers, there were mortgagors with more questionable histories.
MFS-linked entity London Bridging Limited, which has now been pushed into administration by US private credit firm Castlelake, extended two mortgages to Ozone Holdings UK Limited in 2024.
Ozone Holdings UK is owned by Indian property developer Vasudevan Sathyamoorthy, and is part of the wider Ozone Group. In October, Bangalore’s financial crime agency announced a money-laundering investigation into the developer and alleged that Sathyamoorthy and his company Ozone Urbana Infra Developers had “defrauded” home buyers. Ozone Group did not respond to a request for comment.
A number of Ozone Group’s entities have also faced insolvency proceedings in India for allegedly failing to pay creditors before the group successfully applied for loans from MFS.
MFS also provided mortgages to a company owned by the chief executive of Britannia Financial, Julio Cesar Herrera. His father, Julio Herrera Velutini, founded the financial firm and was a prominent Conservative Party donor who last year pleaded guilty to a campaign finance charge in the US. Velutini had also previously served as a director of the entity that borrowed from MFS, Britannia Global Estates, before the mortgage was provided.
MFS provided mortgages against apartments on London’s affluent St James Street in November 2022, months after US authorities charged Velutini with conspiracy and wire fraud over his alleged role in providing campaign funding to the former governor of Puerto Rico. These charges were dismissed when Velutini pleaded guilty to a lower misdemeanour charge in 2025 and US President Donald Trump pardoned the founder of Britannia Financial earlier this year.
Lawyers acting for Julio Cesar Herrera said his company briefly had a loan from entities connected to MFS, but the “loan did not originate with those entities” and was refinanced after just over a year. They added his father was not involved with the company at the time of the loan and “has never had any business relationship with MFS”.
MFS also provided loans to a number of high-profile developers and property investors, including Mark Holyoake, a former business associate of the Candy brothers who got into a long-running legal dispute with the London property duo, which he ultimately lost.
Another Tory donor, Holyoake was chief executive and majority shareholder of British Seafood, which collapsed in 2010 prompting an investigation from the UK’s Serious Fraud Office. The SFO ultimately ended the probe without pressing any charges.
A colleague of Holyoake told the FT that the mortgages, which are still listed on Companies House as “outstanding”, have been repaid and were organised by a broker network, meaning “there is no direct relationship” with MFS. He added that British Seafood collapsed during the financial crisis and that the SFO never made contact between opening and closing its probe.
Creditors to MFS also last week obtained a travel ban that prevents Raja from leaving Dubai, where he now resides.
Raja was pictured in the background of a video filmed at Dubai Watch Week in November, in which manosphere influencer Andrew Tate was also perusing the stands for luxury watches. In the video, the MFS owner appears to be wearing an exclusive Richard Mille timepiece. That same month, Barclays began blocking payment instructions made by Raja’s MFS group.
Raja declined to comment for this article.
A large part of MFS’s business involved backing dozens of property deals linked to Chowdhury, the former land minister in Bangladesh. Along with some of his family members, he built a sprawling $295mn property portfolio from 1992 until August 2024, when the government of Sheikh Hasina collapsed. She was found guilty of using lethal force against protesters before she was ousted.
MFS entities started lending to Chowdhury-linked companies in mid-2019, just after he took a post in the Dhaka government, and are listed as being involved in more than half of the 495 charges registered by the companies against properties in England and Wales.
Many of the loans tied to MFS were repaid after the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s regime in August and September 2024, a year before the UK’s National Crime Agency froze properties linked to Chowdhury worth about £185mn as part of “an ongoing civil investigation”. Bangladeshi authorities accuse Chowdhury of money laundering, corruption and embezzling public funds.
Corporate filings also show a number of defaults on mortgages MFS originated.
Administrators to a hotel group that borrowed nearly £1mn from Raja’s Zircon Bridging Limited said last month that they “do not anticipate a return” to the MFS affiliate. The administrators added that they understood “Zircon also has the benefit of personal guarantees” from the group’s directors, however.
Entities within the MFS group have previously had to appoint insolvency practitioners over several borrowers, including the UK arm of a Dubai-based office equipment supplier owned by two Iranian businessmen.
Back in London, MFS was already on the radar of the FCA by 2024. The watchdog ordered a lawyer-led review into the group’s money-laundering controls. The result: a clean bill of health.
