Mark Westwell on the changing real estate lending market: “The firms that endure hold their standards through the cycle”
July 30th, 2026
When Mark Westwell joined the LEXI Finance board in 2020, he saw a business with ambitious founders, strong values and a clear ambition to raise standards in UK real estate finance. Six years on, those foundations have helped LEXI navigate one of the most turbulent periods the lending market has seen in decades.
Mark Westwell has spent four decades in corporate and institutional banking – at NatWest, Chase Manhattan, JP Morgan, State Street and Bank of New York – watching the UK real estate debt market move through multiple cycles.
When he joined the LEXI Finance board in 2020, Westwell saw a chance to bring institutional standards, governance and a client-first mindset to the UK real estate finance market.
“What impressed me from the outset was the founders’ vision,” Westwell said. “The fundamentals were already there – integrity, accountability, strong client relationships and a genuine desire to do right by borrowers. My job was to embed those principles in the operating model as the business grew, and to introduce the disciplines you would expect in a larger institution.”
The years since have given him an unusually clear view of a market in flux. He has watched UK SME real estate lending remake itself through Covid, the September 2022 mini-budget, the turmoil around Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse, and a sustained retreat by the high-street banks from development finance. In their place has come a wave of debt funds, family-office capital and specialist alternative lenders – now one of the defining features of the cycle, with independent advisors increasingly the bridge between that capital and SME sponsors.
“Having sat on both sides of that table over my career, I can say with some confidence that the firms which endure are those that hold their standards through the cycle,” Westwell said. “Credit-led proposals, institutionally credible documentation, an honest read on what is and is not deliverable. LEXI has held that line, and it matters enormously in a market where it is in short supply.”
That points to a distinction Westwell believes has sharpened with every turn of the cycle: the difference between broking and advice. Sponsors, he argues, have grown far more discerning about who they retain.
“There is a meaningful difference between a broker paid to place a deal and an advisor paid to structure the right outcome,” he said. “Sponsors are alive to that now.
They want someone who will give them an honest read on what the market will and will not do, who will tell them when a deal needs restructuring before it goes out, and who will build a credit story that does the work of winning lender conviction. That is a very different proposition from forwarding a teaser to a panel and waiting for terms to land.”
Over Westwell’s tenure, LEXI has come to resemble an institutional capital markets desk more than a conventional debt broker. It now advises across the full capital structure – senior development finance, bridging, mezzanine, stretched-senior and joint venture equity – on transactions from £2m bridges to development finance in excess of £100m. LEXI’s directors, Charlie Armstrong, Sam Le Pard and Nick Holding-Parsons, have built out the associate team and a proprietary origination platform. Throughout, the firm has worked on a success-fee basis – an alignment Westwell sees as central to the repeat client base and lender relationships it has built.
The next phase, in his view, is the more demanding one.
“It’s about scale without dilution,” Westwell said. “Plenty of firms grow and quietly lose what made them effective, and the directors are very alive to that. Alternative lending keeps taking share, sponsors keep getting more sophisticated, and demand for high-quality advice has never been greater. The opportunity in front of LEXI is significant, and I expect the next few years to be the most interesting yet.”