Stay informed with free updates
Simply sign up to the Financial services myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.
Century Capital Partners, a mortgage provider to London’s rich and famous that collapsed this year, provided some loans without the required anti-money laundering registrations.
The now-defunct bridging lender provided mortgages through two vehicles that had not been registered with the UK Financial Conduct Authority “for anti-money laundering supervision”, according to an administrators’ report.
The administrators overseeing the insolvency of Century — which collapsed in February after one of its own lenders, Blue Owl, became concerned about financial reporting irregularities — added that they are working with the FCA “to resolve this issue”.
Century specialised in providing short-term bridging loans for wealthy individuals, primarily against property in and around London. Clients often turn to specialist bridging firms when they would struggle to raise a mortgage through a mainstream bank.
The collapse of Century, which had a loan book of about £100mn, came weeks before that of Market Financial Solutions, a larger bridging lender whose insolvency has sparked allegations of fraud and scrutiny of private credit firms that backed its lending. Blue Owl has also become a focal point for concerns about the private credit sector and its stock has shed about 40 per cent so far this year.
British entrepreneur Paul Munford established Century in 2011, after a brief stint as chief executive of a bridging lender established with property mogul brothers Christian and Nick Candy. Munford has in recent weeks tried to raise capital for a new bridging firm called Century London.
Century’s administrators, Munford and the FCA declined to comment.
While the firm’s parent company, Century Capital Partners, had registered with the FCA for anti-money laundering purposes, it did not hold required registrations for its lending subsidiaries, CenCap and Century Prime, according to the FCA’s register and people familiar with the situation.
Century’s management became aware of this apparent oversight prior to its administration, according to two people familiar with the matter, and was working to rectify the issue before it collapsed. One of the people added that Century had previously received unclear advice over whether the vehicles needed separate authorisation to the parent group, which did hold the requisite approvals.
Public records show that CenCap last year provided mortgages to Anisuzzaman Chowdhury, the brother of Bangladesh’s former land minister, Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, who had already faced scrutiny for amassing hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of luxury real estate.
MFS, whose creditors are facing a more than £1.3bn shortfall due to alleged double-pledging of collateral, also came under scrutiny prior to its collapse for providing mortgages to Saifuzzaman Chowdhury and his wife.
Loans to family members of so-called politically exposed persons are considered higher risk and can face more scrutiny from regulators. Century performed due diligence on the source of Anisuzzaman Chowdhury’s wealth before providing the loans, according to people familiar with the matter.
Anisuzzaman Chowdhury told the FT that his business interests are separate from those of his brother, who last year had multiple properties frozen by the UK’s National Crime Agency.
Saifuzzaman Chowdhury served as land minister from 2019 to early 2024. Shortly after the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s regime in August 2024, Bangladesh authorities ordered banks to freeze the assets of the former minister and his wife.
CenCap provided mortgages to Anisuzzaman Chowdhury that refinanced earlier loans from Singapore’s DBS Bank. One of the properties, in the Westmark Tower in London’s Paddington, was acquired for £1.6mn in 2021, with the other apartment in Mayfair’s Mandarin Oriental purchased for £2.8mn in 2023, according to UK Land Registry records.
Anisuzzaman Chowdhury told the FT that DBS had “prematurely withdrawn” both funding to his brother and his own mortgages.
“I have no business relation with my brother and all allegations are baseless and have been part of political witch-hunt by the incompetent interim government,” Anisuzzaman Chowdhury said, adding that “no allegation has been proven and no case has been filed against me”.
DBS declined to comment.
Additional reporting by Martin Arnold in London and Owen Walker in Singapore
