Bank of London and The Middle East
A Sharia-compliant UK bank, now Kuwaiti-owned, writing commercial real estate investment and development finance from £5m to £30m for property investors and GCC-linked clients.
What they do
BLME is a PRA-authorised Islamic bank funded by Sharia-compliant deposits and owned by Boubyan Bank. Its real estate finance team, operating from Canary Wharf and Mayfair with a Dubai office alongside, funds commercial investment property and development schemes from £5m to £30m across England, Scotland and Wales, in sectors from industrial and logistics to hotels, offices and build-to-rent. Returns are structured as profit rate or ijara rental rather than interest, and every contract passes a Sharia supervisory board.
Where they fit in a lower-mid-market raise
A £3–15m property requirement sits inside the band, and the bank's client base of GCC investors and family offices buying UK real estate is its clearest use. It funds development as well as standing investment, which not every deposit-funded bank will do. For a borrower who needs Sharia-compliant structures at institutional scale, the choice in the UK is short and this bank is on it.
Where they are not the fit
The corporate and leasing businesses that once sat alongside the property book have been sold or run down, so this is now a real estate lender and should be approached as one. Sharia screening excludes alcohol, tobacco, gambling, pork and conventional interest income at both borrower and asset level. Lending is limited to Great Britain, and nothing is priced publicly.
Published terms
- Pricing
- Not published
- Speed to terms
- Not published
- Sponsored or sponsorless
- Property-investor or developer-borrower led, heavily oriented to GCC-linked private clients and family offices investing in UK real estate; not a private-equity sponsor leveraged-finance house
- Where they lend
- Great Britain - England, Scotland and Wales; regional focus driven by client activity and yield. Strong GCC-investor client base into UK real estate. Offices in London (Canary Wharf, Mayfair) and Dubai. Northern Ireland not listed
- How they decide
- Bank credit process with a Sharia Supervisory Board that reviews contracts for Sharia compliance; relationship-led origination through the Real Estate Finance team
- Search funds and ETA
- No published route for search-fund or first-time acquirer borrowers
As published by the lender and last reviewed August 2026. Terms quoted on a deal are set by the credit, not by a published band.
The desks that lend
Bank of London and The Middle East lends through 2 separate books. Which one reads a deal decides the security, the covenant package and the band, so the question is rarely whether Bank of London and The Middle East lends, but which of these would own it.
Commercial real estate finance (investment & bridging)
- Facility
- £5m to £30m
- Security
- Fixed charge over the financed real estate (Sharia ijara/murabaha structure rather than a conventional interest-bearing mortgage); loan to value not published
- Funds
- Acquisition · Growth · Refinance
- Rules out
- Great Britain only (England, Scotland, Wales); Northern Ireland not listed among covered geographies; Sharia-compliant only - no interest-bearing structures; borrower/asset must pass Sharia screen (no alcohol, tobacco, gambling, pork, conventional-finance income); Real-estate-secured only - this is property finance, not cash-flow/EBITDA lending; Strong GCC-client orientation; UK real estate is the asset class
Real estate development finance
- Facility
- £5m to £30m
- Security
- Fixed charge over the development asset/land; Sharia ijara/murabaha structure; loan to value/loan to gross development value not published
- Funds
- Acquisition · Growth
- Rules out
- Great Britain only; Sharia-compliant screen applies; Real-estate-secured; development lending is against the scheme/land, not corporate cash flow; Facility term short-dated (1yr bridging to ~5yr investment)
Limits that apply across the firm
Stated limits, taken from Bank of London and The Middle East’s own published criteria, beyond the ones each desk carries above. A limit is where a lender starts from, not where it always ends: several of these move on a strong enough credit.
- No appetite in adult, adult entertainment, alcohol, conventional-finance or gambling
How they sit against the category
- Its published ceiling is £30m; 16 of the 42 challenger and specialist banks here go at least as high.
- It starts higher than all but 6 of them, at £5m.
- Like 24 of the 42, it publishes no indicative price — a margin comes from a conversation, not a page.
Counted across the 42 challenger & specialist banks in this directory, on what each one publishes. What a lender discloses and what it will do are different things.
Questions this page answers
How large a facility does Bank of London and The Middle East write?
Published facilities run £5m to £30m. A band is what a lender states it will do, not what it will do on a given credit.
Does Bank of London and The Middle East lend to search funds or ETA buyers?
Not on the published evidence. Bank of London and The Middle East publishes no route for search-fund or first-time acquirer borrowers. A searcher's route to a lender usually runs through the quality of the target and the equity behind it.
Does Bank of London and The Middle East lend to companies without a private-equity sponsor?
Yes. Bank of London and The Middle East lends to owner-managed and corporate borrowers, and publishes no private-equity sponsor proposition.
Where does Bank of London and The Middle East lend?
Great Britain - England, Scotland and Wales; regional focus driven by client activity and yield. Strong GCC-investor client base into UK real estate. Offices in London (Canary Wharf, Mayfair) and Dubai. Northern Ireland not listed.
What does Bank of London and The Middle East lend?
The published product set is commercial real estate finance, real estate development finance. Published sector focus is buildtorent, buytolet, development, hospitality, hotel.
On the record
August 2024: £25m, 3-year facility to Criterion Capital for office-to-hotel conversion of Trafalgar Buildings into Zedwell Trafalgar Square (criterioncapital.co.uk / costar.com / hospitalityinvestor.com.
November 2021: £7.79m total — £6.05m commercial investment facility to Bedrock Group for a 13,000 sq ft City-fringe multi-let office + £1.74m development facility for a Kingston student-to-co-living conversion (commercialnewsmedia.com.
Sources: blme.com
This profile is a curated reference note drawn from public sources, not financial advice or a recommendation. Appetite and terms change; a lender's fit for a given credit is established by approaching it, not inferred from a page.