Meet Michael Galloway – UK Property Development Finance Specialist (CBCA, CPSP)

Why I Founded Property Development Finance UK

I want to make property development finance an easier task for developers.

Every project carries multiple risks that must be navigated long before realised return on investment is delivered. Typically, developers require a level of expertise in planning frameworks, construction sequencing, procurement strategies, and project delivery — all while managing a cross-disciplinary team of architects, contractors, quantity surveyors, engineers, planning consultants, and legal advisors.

On top of all that, finance is a discipline too far. Unlike other aspects of a build, small financial errors can’t be caught and corrected down-stream. Financial decisions are made at the outset and their consequences lie dormant, like an unexploded bomb, waiting to impact the viability and profitability of the entire scheme.

Property developers are expected to master an intimidating range of financial disciplines — from cash flow forecasting, debt structuring, and layered equity stacks, to planning risk, build cost inflation, contractor exposure, valuation methodology, and exit timing. Each of these elements comes with its own language, assumptions, and failure points. Misunderstanding just one can destabilise an entire project — wiping out profit, collapsing funding lines, or locking you into a deal that no longer stacks. In this game, there’s no safety net for financial naivety.

My aim with Property Development Finance UK is to provide insights, tools, and support, so that developers are as comfortable with finance as they are with buying materials and managing contractors.

Early Exposure to Finance

I loved finance before I even knew what it was. Hailing from northern working-class folk that moved to London to chase their dreams, my household was full of positive energy but little financial acumen.

Even as a small child barely into double figures I would indulge a guilty financial pleasure. To the absolute bewilderment of my family, I would take myself to the newsagents every few months and buy a Financial Times. I’d carry it home like it was the Crown Jewels and unfold its massive broadsheets across the lounge floor.

I’d slowly turn each page doing my best to absorb its content until I got to the holy grail: the Market Data pages. The final page turn was like slowly lifting the lid from the Ark of the Covenant. At that point anyone watching me probably saw golden light streaming from the pages and heard angels sing.

Obviously, I had absolutely no idea what I was looking at. Daily price changes and 52-week spreads were easy enough to understand. Yld (yields), P/E (price to earnings ratios) and MCap (market capitalisation) wouldn’t pull into view for another 26 years of time and 7,500 miles of distance.

The little boy who knew finance was his future (and his big sister)

Early Travels

My working-class parents made their fortune and decided to spend it (like I said, zero financial acumen). In 1985, we relocated to pre-EU Portugal to live on a boat. The currency was the Escudo, work permits were essential and language skills were non-negotiable to operate in any meaningful way. Little did I know then, but this life experience would stand me in good stead in 20 years’ time.

Pressure Creates Diamonds: Sales, Survival & Standing Out in a Cutthroat Market

I’d never experienced anything like it. Locking your leads in a filing cabinet at the end of the day wasn’t enough because other sales guys had managed to get duplicate keys. If a competitor was seen in the street, they would often be followed to see who they were meeting with next. I was back in the UK in my early 20’s and in the brutally competitive world of office relocation and interior design and build.

Everybody was scrambling for business. It was an aggressive, cutthroat industry that was not for the faint hearted. I had to do something different. I had to operate outside accepted parameters because competing head-to-head with more experienced guys wasn’t going to deliver the desired outcome.

Leads were being bought from sources that were selling industry wide, and the trade press was being read by all the same people as well. There was no edge in doing what everyone else was doing.

Trigger Events: How I Learned to Spot Opportunity

I realised that businesses moved, refurbished, and expanded premises following precursors such as IPO’s, management buyouts and, successful funding rounds so I was back to the FT, the Wall Street Journal, Telegraph Business Section, Investors Chronicle etc to hunt out those signals – later I came to realise I was using corporate finance events to predict capex investment.

Sector Analysis: Analysing Growth Sectors Before They Took Off

I’d seen that traditionally the office relocation and interior design and build industry had done very well servicing the high growth computer game sector. So, I looked for other “vertical markets” that were benefiting from growth. At that time the telecoms industry was being deregulated in the UK with multiple international operators setting up in Britain – while the rise in the gaming sector was a sectoral trend, telecoms growth was going to be driven by policy-driven market expansion creating huge capex and operational spend.

Geographic Macroeconomic Insight: Global Insight – Tracking Macro Trends in the USSR & Beyond

Geographically Russia was becoming the former Soviet Union and every international brand from Goodyear to Reebok were looking to set up in Moscow where my employer already had a small outpost – emerging market analysis and macro-political shifts.

The world of business was revealing itself as a series of frameworks and workflows to be managed, adapted, and optimised – and I hadn’t even started in finance yet.

Building a Business

Then in 1993 I was presented with a niche, underserved market in the below-the-line promotions sector – and it was ripe for maximisation. I partnered with the person that brought me the idea, and for the next 14 years expanded from a home office into a major national player, working with household name clients across the UK.

Waste recycling campaign launched at Emirates Stadium

Finally Finance: The Boom Years (2007–2016)

An acrimonious business split (complete with restrictive covenants) and two marriages in the rearview, 2007 was time to spread my wings, and the moment a lifetime of experience came together.

I decided to travel, the plan was to start a long way from home and slowly work my way back. I was Bali-bound.

Two weeks in, a chat with a nice fellow in a coffee shop and I was on the way to starting a second career. I flew from Bali to Jakarta, and for the first time, stepped onto a professional offshore investment sales floor. I was home.

The noise and energy were intoxicating. The positivity of like-minded people getting business done was mesmerising – and I wanted in. A two-month work permit dance ensued and then I took up employment. An initial eight-week course got me to a booth, then “desk-training” began so you can “earn while you learn”.

I was on the floor in September 2008 when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and the boards turned red, and I was there for the recovery. Well before Jim Cramer coined the term FAANG (2013) they were everyone’s favourite growth picks.

During my tenure 2007-2016:

• Apple Inc. (AAPL) grew 800%
• Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) grew 1,775%
• Netflix Inc. (NFLX) grew 3,470%
• Google (Alphabet Inc.) (GOOG) grew 220%
• Facebook (Meta Platforms Inc.) (META) grew 200%
• Mastercard Inc. (MA) grew 1,000%
• Visa Inc. (V) grew 68%

You could literally walk into the office and do nothing more than turn the lights on and make your clients money. For me this heralded a golden age of learning and achievement.

Rocking low key Batik

Jl. Jen. Sudirman, my office view

The Retirement That Never Was – Staying Global with Finance

Forty-five seemed like a good age to retire – but as Michael Corleone said in Godfather Part III (1990) “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in”

That was a bit dramatic. When you are good at something the offers keep on coming and some projects are just too interesting to pass up. It turns out that my deep love of finance combined with the ability to apply framework driven workflows, build analytically supported forecasts and operate effectively in complex offshore environments, kept me busy around the globe.

More beard, more phones, more countries

What I Do Now – Finance Strategy for UK Developers (and Bali Life)

My preference now is for the slower pace of corporate finance on a case-by-case basis. The markets are fun and exciting but require a lot of work to keep abreast of.

I’ve been involved with raising capital for UK-based property developers in a broad range of scenarios. From casual conversation with lenders and brokers, to engaging with funds for highly bespoke solutions, and even creating and marketing debt instruments to raise private equity funding.

What I’ve seen through these endeavours has shown me that property developers are dynamic individuals who love creating buildings as much as I love crafting well rounded financial solutions tailored to meet the needs of everyone involved.

I’m not a broker, and I don’t pore over every condition in every loan contract. But I can give developers the clarity and control they need to manage these processes themselves — from quick-and-dirty appraisals, to full cash flow modelling and complex development waterfall structures showing staged investor repayments and profit distributions.

If you want a deeper dive into how property development finance actually works, start with The Capital Stack for UK Property Development Finance.

Contact Michael Galloway

My goal is simple: to make sure finance becomes a strength, not a stumbling block. If that sounds useful, let’s connect — or dive into the tools and insights on the site.

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