Sanjeev Gupta’s family has taken out a new £24.4mn mortgage against a central London mansion, refinancing one of several trophy assets amassed before the industrialist’s business empire became beset with legal difficulties. Topland Group, a property investment firm founded by Israeli-born billionaire Sol Zakay, last month provided an 18-month bridging loan against the Gupta family’s six-storey Georgian townhouse in the wealthy Belgravia district, according to people familiar with the transaction. The steel tycoon’s wife Nicola Gupta purchased the property in Belgrave Square for £42mn in 2020, according to UK property records, using a mortgage from the Swiss private banking unit of Barclays. Less than a year after Gupta’s family acquired the luxury property, the metals magnate’s GFG Alliance group of companies was plunged into crisis by the collapse of its main funder, Greensill Capital, amid a sprawling financial and political scandal. Gupta’s companies have been beset by legal claims and probes from authorities around the world in the years following Greensill’s collapse, while the British industrialist has also lost control of a number of steelmaking businesses due to insolvency proceedings. The Belgravia mansion is the crown jewel in a personal property portfolio that stretches from the UK to the United Arab Emirates to Australia. The townhouse was previously owned by Mary Haughey, the widow of pharmaceuticals tycoon Lord Ballyedmond, who undertook extensive renovations of the Grade I-listed building. Two people familiar with the matter said that Gupta had recently discussed potentially selling the property. The FT reported last year that the metals magnate had sold a villa in Dubai for Dh43.5mn (£8.7mn), the smaller of two properties he owned on the emirate’s man-made Palm Jumeirah archipelago. Topland announced last month that it had provided a mortgage against a “residence at one of Belgravia’s most prestigious addresses”, which “enabled a UAE-based ultra-high-net-worth family to refinance an existing loan from a private bank”.Topland told the FT that the “loan was made to Mrs Gupta, not Mr Gupta, in the ordinary course of its lending business following all appropriate due diligence”. A spokesperson for Gupta declined to comment. Short-term bridging loans typically carry higher rates of interest than standard mortgages and are often taken out by borrowers who would struggle to raise financing from a mainstream bank. The sector has come under scrutiny this year after Market Financial Solutions, one of the UK’s largest bridging loan providers, collapsed amid fraud allegations. The new loan came at a time when Gupta’s legal woes have intensified, with the Scottish government last week announcing it was taking legal action against GFG Alliance, after uncovering allegedly “unauthorised transactions” at an aluminium smelter in Lochaber. Scotland’s economy secretary, Stephen Flynn, wrote last week that the government had identified transactions that required its consent under the terms of the guarantee, which “was not sought” and “has not been granted”. GFG Alliance said that it had made undertakings requested by the government and had “fulfilled all requests for information from the Scottish Government in connection with these matters”.

These matters do not impact day-to-day operations or employment at the Lochaber smelter or hydropower plant,” GFG added.