The story
Background
The company was formed by Shaid Luqman, a British-born ethnic-Pakistani student at the University of Manchester, who studied finance. He bought his first house during his studies, striking a deal with the university's accommodation agency. This enabled him to approach banks for refinancing, and by the time of his graduation in 1991 he owned a portfolio of 24 flats and houses, which he rented out to fellow students.
History
In 2000 Luqman secured a loan of £2.5m from Barclays Bank to form Pearl Holdings. The company provided bridging loan-finance to high-net-worth individuals to build property portfolios, focusing mainly on projects which converted offices and hotels into flats. Providing agreed finance against a surveyor-agreed valuation of the final project, the company would lend within 24 hours. The loan would remain in place until project financing could be provided by a long-term lender.
Renamed Lexi Holdings plc in 2003, clients included MP's and footballers. In 2003 it was reported to be making profits of £21.4m on a turnover of £36m. The firm grew so well and quickly that in 2004 Luqman was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young.
At its peak, the company claimed to be worth £300M and own a Gulfstream IV business jet, while Luqman had a personal estimated wealth of £250m personal wealth, placing him 238th on the Sunday Times Rich List.
The company at the time of administration claimed to own 47 acres of residential development land at Ten Acres Lane Newton Heath Manchester worth an estimated GBP 50m, the site of the former Mansfield Brewery in Nottingham worth an estimated GBP 18.5m, a retail park in Leeds worth over GBP 20m a development site near Huddersfield worth in excess of GBP 15m, two hotels in the Lake District and a prominent development site in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester.
From Wikipedia’s article on Lexi Holdings, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3