Largely Bare

Tom Saunders writes:

The “shadow bank” at the centre of an alleged fraud scandal rocking the City hired a tiny accountant with just two employees to work for its £2bn business, The Telegraph can reveal.

Market Financial Solutions (MFS), which collapsed last week amid allegations of fraud, listed Magus Chartered as its main accountants in its most recent annual report.

Magus’s own accounts show it had just two employees in 2025, down from three in 2024. Its offices, down the road from Victoria Coach Station in London, occupy part of a basement floor in an office block also home to charities and high street law firms.

The accountant’s owner, Dipendra Amin, is a director of several companies to which MFS and related entities have issued loans. These were secured against properties across the UK, from Mayfair to Hounslow, according to filings on Companies House.

Mr Amin may have been acting on behalf of borrowers, rather than receiving the loans. Nominee accountants can be appointed to act on behalf of the true owner of an asset, becoming the public-facing name of a business while the actual owner remains confidential.

Magnus did not respond to questions regarding what services the firm provided to MFS, though it did not audit the business.

Established in 2002, Magus’s website says that, as well as providing traditional accounting and tax services, it also provides advice on how to improve and develop businesses./ There is no suggestion of illegality or wrongdoing by the company.

However, the revelation about the business’s size will add to scrutiny of MFS’s corporate relationships. Questions have already been raised about MFS’s use of small auditing firms.

MFS boasted a loan book of roughly £2.5bn as of last March and its customers spanned the breadth of the UK. Its clients included property investors, overseas family offices, as well as prominent businessmen and celebrities in the UK./ Companies of that scale typically use Big Four auditors or those just below them to review their filings and work with accountants on a similar scale.

Private credit ventures usually offer higher returns than most corporate and government bonds. The market is not regulated in Britain or the United States on the grounds that the industry is reserved for institutional investors that do not require government oversight.

Prof Paul Barnes, a consultant in areas of finance and forensic accounting, formerly a professor at Nottingham Business School, said large businesses relying on very small companies for financial and legal services was “extremely odd” and a “classic red flag”. “It signals to the outside world that there is something odd,” Prof Barnes added.

MFS was placed into administration late last month amid what a judge called “very serious” allegations of fraud. The company is accused of double pledging assets to back loans. At least £930m is thought to be missing from its balance sheet.

As a so-called shadow bank, MFS did not take deposits and instead funded its loans by borrowing from itself. A cast of high-profile banks, including Santander, Wells Fargo, Jefferies and Barclays backed MFS.

Its demise not only shocked the city, but has prompted the Bank of England to investigate the circumstances of the collapse.

MFS described itself as a specialist provider of buy-to-let mortgage lending and bridging finance. It was part of a fast-growing crop of so-called bridging lenders in the UK. These firms provide short-term, property-backed loans to borrowers who may not qualify for traditional bank financing and often charge higher interest rates.

Paresh Raja, 58, founded MFS with his wife, Tiba, in 2006. MFS’s website stated that Raja was “committed to supporting property investors who encounter difficulties with – or are simply not suitable for – the high street banks”.

MFS was a keen sponsor of events in the Asian community, and in September last year, the business sponsored Indian singer Arijit Singh to play his first UK arena show in London’s Tottenham Hotspur stadium. The company was also a sponsor of a concert in London by Indian rapper Badshah, which is scheduled to go ahead later this month.

The walls of the company’s London offices in Mayfair were adorned with autographed cricket bats, boxing gloves and signed Pink Floyd albums, according to Bloomberg.

When court-appointed insolvency officials arrived at the UK property lender’s London offices last week to take over after the firm’s collapse, the walls were reportedly largely bare.