Croydon property developer: sandwich bar to £300m

Croydon Housing Summit 2026Mario Carrozzo opened a sandwich bar by East Croydon station selling around 50 sandwiches a day. He left school with four GCSEs and no degree. In 2008 he lost everything, carrying £20m of bridging loans and personal guarantees. Six years later he walked into a Mayfair hedge fund boardroom and walked out with over £300m of investment, for social housing.This is his full keynote from the Croydon Property and Housing Summit 2026, on building a business in the part of the property market most investors ignore, and on housing more than 20,000 people the system had written off.Caridon Group is a private social housing provider managing around 2,000 properties across London and the South East, Bristol, Harlow and Crawley.ABOUT THE SUMMITThe Croydon Property and Housing Summit 2026 brought together investors, developers, housing providers, planners and policymakers shaping the borough's future. Mario spoke alongside:Jason Perry, Executive Mayor of CroydonHoward Dawber OBE, Deputy Mayor of London for Business and GrowthCllr Lynne Hale, Statutory Deputy Executive Mayor of Croydon and Cabinet Member for HomesRichard Plant, Chair of Develop Croydon and Partner, Head of Development Consultancy at SHWAdam Smith, Strategic Development Director, Unibail-Rodamco-WestfieldSusmita Sen, Corporate Director of Housing, Croydon CouncilSarah Parsons, Director of Planning and Sustainable Regeneration, Croydon CouncilSPEAKERMario Carrozzo, founder and CEO, Caridon GroupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariocarrozzo/INSIDE CARIDONYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@InsideCaridonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/caridon-property-services/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caridonproperty/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/caridon.property/X: https://x.com/CaridonPropertyWebsite: https://www.caridongroup.co.uk/podcast/---#InsideCaridon #CroydonProperty #SocialHousing #UKProperty