*PREVIEW* Bridging Loan to Nowhere feat. Rob Smith

Summary

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TRASHFUTURE – PREVIEW Bridging Loan to Nowhere feat. Rob Smith

Date: June 5, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode dives into the surreal world of UK private credit and bridging loans, examining a sector where cash flows fast, risks (and personalities) run high, and massive financial decisions are sometimes made with little more than a spreadsheet. The hosts, joined by financial journalist Rob Smith, unpick the business culture and colorful characters of this under-reported financial subculture—with a particular look at the oddities of asset-backed lending, dodgy loan recipients, and the flawed incentives behind it all.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

London’s Paradox: Flash Wealth, Secret Broke

• The “Mayfair Broke” Phenomenon:
  London is home to a surreal class of individuals projecting affluence but surviving on risky credit and bridging loans.
  Quote:

  "There's these whole class of people who, you know, they hang out in Mayfair, they go to very expensive restaurants, they drive around in Bentleys, but actually they're perpetually broke." (A, 00:00)

• Lars Windhorse as Example:
  The hosts reference infamous figures like Lars Windhorse, showcasing “champion” behavior—living ostentatiously while always on the edge financially.

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Asset-Backed Private Credit: New Bottles, Old Wine

• Origins and Rise:
  Private credit has existed since the 1970s but has exploded in recent years. Now, funds are eager to “stuff product into boxes”—i.e., securitize and sell various forms of asset-backed debt.
  Quote:

  "They've been really big on something called asset backed private credit. So they're like, oh, this is backed by property. Property safe, securitizing property. And mortgages never went wrong." (A, 00:24)
  "Famously never gone wrong." (B, 00:52, sarcastically referencing 2008)

• Shadow Banks and Recycling Risk:
  Banks often won’t make direct loans to riskier individuals, but will fund the bridging lenders who do—the risk is simply moved, not eliminated.

• Private Equity's Easy Money:
  Firms like Blue Owl, Apollo, etc., throw huge sums at the sector with minimal due diligence.
  Quote:

  "They're just like super pouring nitrous into this sector by being like, take a half a billion dollars, we don't even need to know your name, just please take this money." (B, 01:30)

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The Process Gap: Banks vs. Private Credit

• Banks: Conduct detailed surveys, site visits, and due diligence.
• Private Credit Funds: Often operate with anonymized spreadsheets—just bare property values and a few details.
  Quote:

  "In this instance, you're a private credit card, you just get a spreadsheet with numbers in." (A, 01:46)

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Colorful Characters: Duncan Krieger and Tab Mortgages

• Introduction to Duncan Krieger:
  Rob Smith describes his fascination with figures like Krieger: a property-lending “geezer” running Tab Mortgages from a surprisingly modest office in Borehamwood, yet with access to vast credit lines (up to half a billion pounds).
  Notable Moment:

  • Krieger’s personal website includes a chatbot “AI version” of himself and boasts:

    “50% of the businesses I’ve been involved in have failed. But I’ve learned something every time.” (A, ~03:20)

• Quirky Details:

  • Duncan produces his own podcast (in Stone Island shirts), collects Porsches, and includes an Amy Winehouse photo among office decor.
  • Quote:

    "All great people, Duncan Krieger has a personal website… with this AI chatbot version of himself." (A, 03:27)

• Funding His Business:

  • Previously funded by Blue Owl (called “the dumpster fire of private credit”), later secured backing from AB Carval—supposedly “smart money.”

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Memorable Encounter: The Interview with Duncan

• Rob Smith visits Krieger’s “dumpy” office—but is charmed:

  • Quote:

    "There was a point halfway through the interview where he was like, oh, you've done a lot of research, haven't you?" (A, 05:31)

  • Krieger’s background: Started in the family business (his father was a kosher butcher-turned-mortgage broker), tried launching a poker hall and an alloy wheels business—all failed before succeeding in bridging loans.

• Classic Quip:

  "Lending is the oldest business in history. Bar one. Maybe." (A, 07:05)

  • ("Maybe"—a nudge to prostitution as the “oldest profession”)

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The Limits of Due Diligence

• Non-performing Loans and the “Accountant”:

  • Krieger’s company had a chunk of non-performing loans, including some to colorful or questionable clients (one simply nicknamed “the accountant”—hints at underhanded dealings).

• The Case of the Bangladeshi Land Minister

  • Duncan’s company lent to Saifu Zaman Chowdhury (and family), then-sitting Land Minister of Bangladesh, who acquired vast numbers of London properties.

    • Quote:

      "The Land Minister, while he was a sitting Land minister, bought, I think I'm right in saying, hundreds of property in London." (A, 08:52)
      "360 homes in the UK." (B, 09:02)

  • Al Jazeera covered this in The Minister’s Millions documentary.

  • Krieger’s rationale: “Enhanced due diligence” was performed and approved externally—though in hindsight, he admits this is not something his firm would do now.

  • Quote:

    "As a bridging lender, you get all sorts of weird, wacky inquiries. Probably not something we would do now." (A, 09:22)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Quote | Speaker | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------| | 00:00 | "There's these whole class of people who... drive around in Bentleys, but actually they're perpetually broke." | A | | 01:30 | "They're just like super pouring nitrous into this sector by being like, take a half a billion dollars, we don't even need to know your name..." | B | | 03:27 | "All great people, Duncan Krieger has a personal website…with this AI chatbot version of himself." | A | | 05:31 | "There was a point halfway through the interview where he was like, oh, you've done a lot of research, haven't you?" | A | | 07:05 | "Lending is the oldest business in history. Bar one. Maybe." | A | | 09:02 | "360 homes in the UK." | B | | 09:22 | "As a bridging lender, you get all sorts of weird, wacky inquiries. Probably not something we would do now." | A |

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Suggested Listening Timestamps

• 00:00–01:46 – London’s “perpetually broke” rich, and private credit’s reckless lending boom
• 02:17–04:51 – Introducing Duncan Krieger, Tab Mortgages, and the colorful world of bridging finance
• 05:10–07:08 – Duncan’s background, failed ventures, and his view on the oldest businesses
• 08:03–09:22 – Lending to high-risk figures: “The Accountant” and Bangladeshi Land Minister saga

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Tone and Style

True to TRASHFUTURE’s satirical and skeptical style, the conversation blends dry humor, incredulity, and a touch of absurdity—shedding light on the bizarre mechanics and personalities behind London’s “money on the edge” scene.

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Summary by TRASHFUTURE Podcast Summarizer

Transcript

[A]

Yeah, and it's a thing about London generally, right? There's these whole class of people who, you know, they hang out in Mayfair, they go to very expensive restaurants, they drive around in Bentleys, but actually they're perpetually broke. I mean, obviously, like my obsession, Lars Windhorse is like the champion of this.

[B]

You love, like the, you love people who are living on the very edge of extremely high precipices.

[A]

Exactly, exactly. And why I love this story is, yeah, it connects with private credit. This is an old industry, it's been around since like the 70s, but in the past few years, private credit has just been looking to stuff product into the boxes that it sells to people. And they've been really big on something called asset backed private credit. So they're like, oh, this is backed by property, Property safe, securitizing property. And mortgages never went wrong.

[B]

That's never gone wrong before.

[A]

Famously never gone wrong. So they've just piled into this space. So they've been providing loans to the bridging lenders. And the other weird phenomenon you get is, as we said, like a bank couldn't provide one of these mortgages, but often the banks fund the bridging lenders. So, you know, like Barclays wouldn't provide a loan to James Stunt, the sort of perpetually broke socialite, but they might provide a securitized credit line on a pool of mortgages to James Stunt and similar people. I'm speaking hypothetically there. I don't know if Barclays funded that specific mortgage.

[B]

But so, so and so basically it's the usual suspects. Blue Owl, Apollo, they're just like super pouring nitrous into this sector by being like, take a half a billion dollars, we don't even need to know your name, just please take this money. We have way too much of it, it has to go somewhere. Lord knows it can't go anywhere useful.

[A]

Yeah, and to be clear, the Apollos of this world, they funded one of the big fiascos we're going to talk about. They don't know the names because they get a list of mortgages, but the names of the people are anonymized. They just get like a list of property values and, you know, a few details. Again, if you're a bank providing that mortgage, you've gone to the property, you've done a survey, you've got conveyances in, you've done all this stuff to actually understand what the property is like. In this instance, you're a private credit card, you just get a spreadsheet with numbers in.

[B]

Well, speak. Let's, let's start with some of the guys. Let's tell, tell, tell us, tell Nova and myself and our audience about maybe my favorite of the three, Duncan. Duncan Krieger and his off and his fabulous office in Borehamwood.

[A]

Yeah, so, okay, so like the guy we're going to talk about at the end, so there's one big one that's blown up called Market Financial Solutions, that's an alleged fraud. So that prompted the FT to take a closer look, like, what is this industry? Who else is there? And in looking at some of the funny characters Market Financial Solutions had lent to, I saw this other company called Tab Mortgages. Okay. And I was like, oh, it also did a relatively risky loan as well. I wonder who these guys are. So I click on them and it's like, we're founded by this guy called Duncan Krieger. Like, lovely name. And like all great people, Duncan Krieger has a personal website. So I, you can pull it up. I click on the personal website and it's just kind of amazing. It's, it's got this line in there. Like, it basically explains how he's been doing property lending since he was 17. And then it has a line about how like 50% of the businesses I've been involved in have failed. But I've learned something every time. And he also has this. Riley's got it up. He has this AI chatbot version of himself.

[C]

I see that it's like sort of animated. He's like blinking at me, asking me to chat with him.

[A]

So I'm like, okay, this Duncan guy's interesting. And then he's got like all people. He's got his kind of own podcast he produced. And he's in like Stone island shirts in this podcast. So I'm like, okay. He's a finance guy wearing Stoney. That's he's getting the badge in on the podcast. I'm like, okay. And then I kind of. Okay, so who funds Duncan, first of all? I'm like, oh, he previously had a credit line from Blue Owl, which Blue Owl is like the dumpster fire of private credit at the moment. And then I'm like, okay, who's his current lender? Because they've wound that down. And it's a firm called AB Carval, who was supposedly the smart money in private credit, but also lent to First Brands. They did the windscreen wiper backed bonds for First Brands. So AB Carval have given him a half a billion with a B credit line. So I was like, wow, this guy's like a geezer up in Borehamwood and he's got half a yard, as we say in finance. I was like, I gotta meet this guy.

[B]

Yeah. Because the story of you meeting him, I don't know how much we can talk about it here.

[A]

No, I think we can. It was all. It was all on the record.

[B]

I think my favorite element of it is you go in saying, hey, I'm just here to talk about, like, how great the. The bridging loan industry is. And it takes him a while to realize what the interview actually is.

[A]

Well, no, I didn't trick the guy. I said, like, look, there's been a huge alleged fraud in the industry. So we're trying to understand the industry. I gave him some bullet points. But he started the interview saying something like, I haven't really done my research about you.

[B]

Do you have a personal website? Does it have an AI chat that I can use?

[A]

Yeah, that's why he wasn't. And then there was a point halfway through the interview where he was like, oh, you've done a lot of research, haven't you? And then there was a point towards the end of the interview, he was at this point puffing on a lost Mary Vape. And he's there and he's like, remind me what this article is about again. But I have to say, I was incredibly fond of Duncan. He was really nice. But, yeah, I've not been to Bournemouth before, so I get up to Bournemouth. It's kind of like a satellite commuter town of London. It's very Jewish. There was a kind of we stand with Israel sign when I got there. I got a bacon sarnie. Not a very kosher breakfast. And, yeah, Duncan's based in this. Like, I don't want to be offensive to them. Quite dumpy office by the train station,

[B]

managing like half a billion in one single loan.

[A]

Yeah. And their office inside is very nice, to be clear. But, like, the exterior of this building is tired and it's next to this train station in Satellite Town. And yeah, I go in and I'm like, okay, Duncan, like, you know, how did you get into the lending game? And he said something like, yeah, well, my dad was a mortgage broker. Well, he was actually a kosher butcher. And then he became a mortgage broker. So I started working for my dad when I was 17 and I was, oh, well, what about the failed businesses? He's like, oh, yeah, all that. Well, I tried to open a poker hall in Camden, and then that didn't work because the council Shut it down. I was trying to sell alloy wheels online, but then yeah, yeah, I got into mortgage broking and then I thought, why don't I start lending? And then he said my favorite quote I've ever printed in the ft, lending is the oldest business in history. Bar one. Maybe like joking about prostitution on record.

[B]

Yeah, pretty good.

[C]

David Graeber's sex work the first 10,001 years.

[A]

Yeah. So I'm like, okay, cool. And like, yeah, we're sat in his office, he's wearing the Stone island shirt. He's got like. He collects Porsches. So he has a photo, I think of his Porsche behind him of Amy Winehouse. All of this.

[B]

He's like, he is. He has like the sort of the gray shag carpet sort of centimillionaire.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And yeah, he founded a bridging lender before this one, which is now owned by Elliot Management, one of the biggest hedge funds in the world. So like he is successful in this industry. But yeah, basically, you know, I'd gone through his accounts and they'd had loads of non performing or they'd had a portion of non performing loans. Not a good thing. But then specifically there were a couple of people they lent to. One I'll come onto later in an MFS context.

[B]

Is that the guy, the accountant?

[A]

Yeah, the accountant. Yeah, we'll talk about the accountant.

[B]

Ben Affleck.

[A]

Yeah, the accountant with all that might imply. But yeah, one of them was say that this other company famously lent to the Bangladeshi Land Minister. So there was a Land Minister of Bangladesh who, you know, had a government salary.

[B]

Saifu Zaman. No, sorry, there's Saifu Zaman Chowdhury was the Land Minister and then he also had a brother called Ansi Zaman Choudhary.

[C]

Is there any reason why a sort of normal bank might be hesitant to loan insane amounts of money to the Land Minister of Bangladesh in Britain?

[A]

I can't imagine why you might be reticent about that.

[B]

But yeah, anti white racism.

[C]

Oh yeah.

[B]

Britain's only problem.

[A]

Yeah. So yeah, Safuza Man Chowdhury, Land Minister, while he was a sitting Land minister, bought, I think I'm right in saying hundreds of property in London.

[B]

360 homes in the UK.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So like one for almost every day of a non leak a year.

[A]

Exactly. And Al Jazeera, if you're listening, you

[B]

don't want to move between the 25th and the 30th. Like it's sort of twixtimus. You want to keep one home for those five days. And then you're 13th of April, I

[C]

have to go to Bangladesh.

[A]

But, yeah. So if your listeners should watch. Al Jazeera did this mini doc called the Minister's Millions a few years back where they got undercover footage of the Landminster in his, like, Mayfair townhouse talking about all his mortgages. It's fantastic. But, yeah, but Duncan had done not hundreds of loans, but maybe like three or four loans to the guy and his wife. So I was like, okay, how did that work? How did he pass due diligence? And he's like, oh, no, we did enhance due diligence on him. We got an external firm, it was all signed off. And then he said, I've got the quote. As a bridging lender, you get all sorts of weird, wacky inquiries. Probably not something we would do now, before going on to add that Chowdhury did not seem particularly wacky at the time, as he had a, quote, big portfolio in the UK with mortgages all over town.