Market Financial Solutions: The bridging lender that entered administration despite posting record profits

Market Financial Solutions (MFS), one of the UK's most prominent specialist property finance lenders, entered administration in February 2026 - just months after filing accounts showing record turnover, surging profits, and a clean bill of health from its auditors.

The circumstances surrounding its collapse have raised serious questions that go well beyond a simple banking issue.

To understand why the administration of MFS has generated such widespread interest, it helps to start with what its own numbers were saying right up until the end.

MFS was incorporated in November 2006 by founder Paresh Raja, who retained a 75% shareholding and served as the company's ultimate controlling party. Operating from prestigious offices at 46 Hertford Street in Mayfair, the business focused on bridging loans and buy-to-let mortgages across England and Wales. At its peak, it managed a cumulative loan book of approximately £2.7 billion and had never stopped lending throughout its entire history, including during the 2008 financial crisis.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Its most recently filed accounts, covering the year to 31 December 2024 and filed at Companies House on 11 April 2025, painted a picture of a business in good health.^[6]

Turnover from loan interest and fees reached £71.6 million - a 62% increase on the £44.2 million reported in 2023. Operating profit surged by approximately 170% to £10.5 million, and post-tax profit jumped from £2.9 million to £7.6 million. Net assets grew by 74% to £15.9 million, supported by a loan book of approximately £2.4 billion by year-end. The company had grown its headcount from 98 to 149 employees and paid dividends of £900,000 during the year.

The accounts were audited by Berkeley Finch Limited, with accountancy services provided by Magus Chartered Accountants. Crucially, the auditors gave a clean opinion, confirming the accounts gave a "true and fair view" of the company's affairs, and raised no qualification on going concern whatsoever. As recently as 31 March 2025, when the directors signed off on those accounts, they stated they had "a reasonable expectation that the company has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future."^[6]

By any conventional reading, this was not a business heading towards administration.

The collapse: A "procedural matter" with a banking provider

On 20 February 2026, MFS applied to the court to enter administration. The reason given was unusual: "a temporary restriction on access to the Company's banking facilities, arising from a procedural matter with its primary banking provider."^[7][8]

Paresh Raja issued a statement describing the administration as "an extremely difficult moment" and was at pains to frame it as something other than a business failure. "The current situation does not reflect a failure of the underlying business or the quality of our assets," he said, "but rather a technical and procedural impasse that has temporarily limited our access to everyday banking facilities."^[7][8]

The company maintained that the administration would provide "a structured and regulated environment" for protecting business assets and maintaining loan management, collections and servicing. It continued to assert that the underlying business remained "asset-backed and operationally sound."^[8]

For those familiar with the world of commercial property finance, this explanation raised immediate eyebrows. A lender with £71 million in annual turnover, a £2.4 billion loan book, and £17 million in cash at bank does not ordinarily find itself unable to access banking facilities because of an administrative procedural issue. Banking relationships of this scale and complexity are not routinely switched off over paperwork.


What the Companies House filing history reveals

While the official narrative pointed to a routine banking difficulty, the Companies House filing history for MFS told a rather different story in the months leading up to the administration.^[6]

In March 2025, two new directors were appointed: Ms Sharon Mary Anne Hewes and Mr Stuart Martin Hicks. The appointment of independent directors at this point could be read as an attempt to strengthen the company's governance - a not uncommon response when a business is under external scrutiny or faces regulatory pressure.

By the beginning of January 2026, Hewes had resigned. By early February 2026, Hicks had followed. Then, on 16 February, just four days before the administration filing, Pratibha Raja, a co-director and family member of the founder, also departed. Both TM01 termination filings were made at Companies House on 20 February 2026, the same day as the administration application.^[6]

To summarise: within approximately ten to eleven months of their appointment, both independently-appointed directors had left. The founder's wife departed days before the company entered administration. By the time the administration was filed, Paresh Raja was the sole remaining director.

The rapid sequential departure of all other directors, including two who appear to have been brought in specifically to bolster governance, is not easily explained as coincidence.

The Bangladesh connection

To understand what may have been happening behind the scenes, it is necessary to examine a set of investigations that had been building for some time - and which placed MFS and its founder at the centre of a major international money laundering enquiry.

Saifuzzaman Chowdhury served as Bangladesh's Land Minister under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, whose government was ousted in August 2024.

In the period since, Chowdhury has become the subject of sweeping investigations by journalists and law enforcement agencies across multiple countries into how he came to acquire an extraordinarily large overseas property portfolio - one that bore no plausible relationship to his declared official assets of $2.3 million.

Investigations by Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, The Observer/Guardian (in partnership with Transparency International), the Financial Times, and others found that Chowdhury and his family had acquired at least 482 properties overseas — including 315 in the UK, 142 in Dubai, and 22 in the US — with a combined estimated value of approximately $295 million. Bangladesh's constitution requires politicians to declare foreign assets; his were not declared. Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission subsequently froze his bank accounts and launched an investigation into allegations of the illegal acquisition of hundreds of millions of dollars.^[9][10]

MFS and Paresh Raja: at the centre of the financing network

Multiple credible investigative sources identified MFS and its founder as central figures in the network that financed Chowdhury's UK property acquisitions.

Bloomberg reported that Paresh Raja was "chief executive officer or director of eight financial services firms that lent money in relation to more than 175 of the [Chowdhury] properties."^[11]

Al Jazeera Investigations produced a documentary in which undercover reporters were introduced to a network of London advisers described as having helped Chowdhury build his property empire, naming Paresh Raja as someone "who made hundreds of loans through his company Market Financial Solutions and his other businesses."^[12][9]

The Observer and Guardian, working with Transparency International, reported that "Chowdhury's vast portfolio was acquired and managed with assistance from MovingCity, the estate agent, law firm Charles Douglas, and lender Market Financial Solutions."^[13]

The Financial Times conducted a major investigation into what it described as Chowdhury's "shadowy global property empire," identifying the lending connection.^[14]

Firstpost reported that "many of these loans came from Market Financial Solutions (MFS), owned by British businessman Paresh Raja. MFS began lending to Chowdhury-linked companies in mid-2019, coinciding with his appointment as land minister."^[15]

That last point is worth contemplating. The timing of MFS's lending relationship with Chowdhury-linked entities - beginning when he took up his ministerial post - would inevitably form part of any regulatory or law enforcement assessment of the business's exposure.

The rapid loan repayments and the NCA asset freeze

Following the fall of Sheikh Hasina's government in August 2024, something notable happened with the Chowdhury loan portfolio. According to Firstpost, between August and September 2024, 259 of the 352 loans linked to Chowdhury's companies were settled, including all those connected to MFS.^[15]

The rapid repayment of a large number of loans by entities connected to an individual now facing international corruption investigations is itself a pattern that regulators and compliance teams are trained to treat as a potential indicator of money laundering activity - specifically, the rapid movement of funds to clean up paper trails in anticipation of enforcement action.

In June 2025, the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) escalated its involvement significantly. The NCA froze UK property assets worth £170 million belonging to Chowdhury as part of an anti-corruption probe. Over 300 properties linked to him were hit with asset-freezing orders, including numerous luxury London properties. This represented one of the most substantial property asset freezes by UK law enforcement in recent years.^[16]

Why a bank might restrict access to facilities

Under UK anti-money laundering regulations, banks are legally required to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) with the NCA where they have concerns about transactions or relationships. They may also restrict or withdraw banking facilities in circumstances where enhanced due diligence has revealed unacceptable risk - or where law enforcement has made contact.^[17]

The formal involvement of the NCA in the Chowdhury investigation, and the publicly reported identification of MFS as a key lender in the financing network, would in normal circumstances trigger precisely this kind of enhanced due diligence review by MFS's banking provider.

The UK banking sector's sensitivity to money laundering risk in the property lending sector is well documented. NatWest was previously the subject of a criminal conviction for AML failures in property-related contexts (the first such prosecution of a major UK bank), which significantly sharpened the industry's approach to managing these risks.^[18]

Against this backdrop, a bank choosing to restrict operational banking access to a lender that had been publicly identified across multiple major investigations as centrally involved in financing a portfolio now subject to a £170 million NCA asset freeze would be behaving entirely consistently with its regulatory obligations.


What the filed accounts suggest

There are also aspects of the 2024 accounts that, in the light of the broader picture, merit attention.

The accounts show "other debtors" of £52.5 million and related party debtors of £47.6 million - entities under the control or significant influence of the director. Related party creditors stood at £43.8 million. These are substantial inter-company flows. In isolation they might represent routine group treasury arrangements; viewed in the context of an ongoing investigation, they warrant scrutiny.^[6]

The accounts also show that only 13% of loan enquiries were approved in 2024, up from 8% the previous year. While the company described this as evidence of selective underwriting, it also reflects a business model built on high-value, concentrated lending. The scale of the Chowdhury exposure - over 175 properties across eight lending entities controlled by the same individual - represents a significant concentration of business with a single client network.

MFS's position

MFS, alongside others named in the various investigations — including Charles Douglas Solicitors — consistently maintained that they "complied with all relevant money-laundering regulations, including strict due diligence checks on customers' sources of wealth." They stated that Chowdhury's funds came from "legitimate and longstanding businesses in the United Arab Emirates, the United States and the UK, not Bangladesh."^[13][9]

Chowdhury himself denied wrongdoing and described his wealth as legitimate.^[16] MFS's FCA authorisation remains on record under reference number 769165.^[19]


The picture that emerges

What we have, then, is the following sequence of events.

A specialist property lender files accounts in April 2025 showing record profitability and receives a clean audit report, with directors confirming going concern as recently as March 2025. In the months that follow, both newly appointed independent directors resign, along with the founder's wife, in quick succession. In February 2026, the company enters administration, citing a banking restriction that its founder characterises as a procedural technicality.

In the background: a former government minister subject to international money laundering investigations had acquired 315 UK properties, many financed through MFS and entities connected to the same founder. The UK's NCA had frozen £170 million of his UK assets eight months before the administration. The investigative reporting connecting MFS to this network had been carried out by Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, the Guardian, the Financial Times and others.

The administration process is ongoing and will determine the outcomes for creditors, investors and employees. Much remains unknown, and no findings of wrongdoing against MFS have been made by any court or regulator.

But for those watching the specialist lending market, the story of Market Financial Solutions is a reminder that in an era of heightened financial crime enforcement, the risks that can bring down even a seemingly profitable business are not always visible on a balance sheet.

Also read:
Value of UK financial services M&A almost doubles in 2025
Check out our 2026 M&A outlook for more on the trends that defined UK M&A in 2025, including an in-depth look at why the financial services sector is set to be one of the busiest for M&A this year

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