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About Foster Marlon

“Persistence and resilience only come from having been given the chance to work through difficult problems.”   ― Gever Tulley

Foster Marlon is a commercial real estate investment and development firm based in the UK. We invest in distressed assets and focus on value added strategies, thereby transforming our assets to deliver above average returns to our investors. Foster Marlon’s objective is to attract institutional capital and redevelop properties in prime locations across the UK and generate above-average ROI through proactive asset management.

What started as a one-off investment in real estate has now blossomed into a full-fledged commercial real estate business with specialization in developing properties and putting them to constructive use, thereby enhancing the value of the investment manifold.

The Initial Years

Foster Marlon was founded by brothers Rubaid and Uzair Zaidi in 2012 when they spun off from their well-established family business in South London to focus on development opportunities in prime locations across regional cities. Having started with a very humble seed capital injection from their family, their journey led them to Liverpool as the city offered ample scope for investing in the property redevelopment business, especially in the residential and student housing sector. Being new to the city they had to develop their contact base from the ground up to establish themselves as a serious player in the city. Assets were available at well below their replacement cost and thus a huge opportunity existed in enhancing their value through smart asset management. A slew of successful projects have garnered the attention of global investor capital which had propelled them to kick-start their journey into commercial real estate.

Graduating to the next league

Initially, Foster Marlon focused on redeveloping multiple apartment complexes and student accommodation. This experience led to a joint venture investment with Hongkong Sotheby’s International Realty, where they raised capital through global retail investors.

The partnership led to the development of an award winning grade II listed asset, the former head quarters of NatWest Bank in prime Liverpool city centre. At the time, Foster Marlon’s team stated the redevelopment was considered one of the most challenging and complex projects in the city. The asset was repurposed from office use into residential and retail. The success of the project proved to be a watershed moment in Foster Marlon’s history, as it grasped the attention of the institutional investor market.

Sustained focus on enhancing the value of the investment

Our focus is on creating investment opportunities and ensure risk-adjusted returns for the investors by developing creative alternative use strategies to enhance their value. Foster Marlon leverages its expertise in the field in conjunction with like minded partners, who are considered the best-in-class, to execute their vision. Our propensity to take an entrepreneurial approach, combined with ‘out of the box’ thinking allows us to over come challenges and obstacles in unorthodox ways.

The Foster Marlon Team brings with it decades of combined experience in real estate development, construction and asset management, which is the driving force behind its success.

Awards and Recognition

Foster Marlon Group success in raising private equity capital from HNWI in the far-east was recognised by the department of international trade. This resulted in us being awarded the Greater China Rising Star Award for Bilateral Trade between the UK and China in 2017.

Our serviced apartment brand FM Living, was shortlisted as one of the finalists in the 2020 ASAP – The Association of Serviced Apartment Providers Serviced Apartment Industry Awards in the Industry Newcomer category.

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Leadership Team


Foster Marlon has built up a team of dedicated people well-versed in all areas of asset management, financial investment management, taxation, and law. The Foster Marlon Team has a collective working experience of more than 30 years while dealing with properties worth more than half a billion pounds.

Rubaid Zaidi

Managing Partner

Rubaid is a Co-Founder and Managing Parter, Head of Investments and a member of the investment committee for Foster Marlon Group. He has over 10 years of industry experience, with cross-border expertise spanning over three continents. Rubaid has rich experience in real estate across various sectors (residential, student accommodation, hotels, offices and retail). His expertise include real estate development, construction and operations/asset management. He has worked in the real estate sector for large global consultancy and advisory firms, PriceWaterHouse Cooper and Colliers international real estate. Rubaid holds a BSc Hons in Real Estate Management from Oxford Brookes University.

Uzair Zaidi

Managing Partner

Mr Uzair Zaidi is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Foster Marlon Group and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. Mr. Zaidi has management responsibility over the firm’s finance, treasury, technology and corporate development functions. He is responsible for the management and integration of internal operations across the portfolio and also oversees the execution of all Investor events globally throughout the year. Prior to starting Foster Marlon Group, Mr Zaidi spent four years at Citigroup in their Global Corporate Banking Group where he focused on business development with the bank’s largest global clients. Mr Zaidi holds an MBA in Finance from Imperial College London Business School.