A mezzanine lender built by developers

Who we are

Max Mezz is a specialist mezzanine lender and whole-of-market broker built by people who have developed property themselves. We fund one layer of the capital stack: the gap between what a senior lender will advance and what a developer wants to leave in the deal. Because that is all we do, we underwrite it quickly and structure it cleanly.

Most loans we fund from our own book, secured by a second charge, sized against a scheme we have underwritten ourselves, and governed by an intercreditor agreement the senior lending market already understands. Where a case suits another funder's appetite better, on pricing, leverage or sector, we arrange it whole of market instead. Either way, enquiries get a considered credit view inside 48 hours, not a circulation exercise.

What we believe

Mezzanine has a reputation as expensive money for desperate borrowers. We think that reputation belongs to bad mezzanine: opaque pricing, slow decisions, lenders who have never stood on a site. Done properly, the middle layer is simply the most efficient way for a good developer to run more than one scheme at a time.

We are also honest about where our book ends. Most loans we fund as principal; where a case suits another funder's appetite better, we arrange it whole of market and say so in writing before terms are agreed. The same honesty applies to the layers we do not fund at all: for senior development finance we point developers to Construction Capital, for short-term first-charge lending to Bridge Financing, and for equity partners to JV Equity.

That is why we publish our underwriting data, put our arithmetic in a calculator anyone can use, and write term sheets that say what things cost on page one.