Know your BDM: Ryan Brewer, Glenhawk

Which locations and how many advisers and broker firms do you cover in your role at Glenhawk?

I cover the North, which for me is the North West, the North East and Scotland as well, so there’s quite a lot of ground to cover.

In terms of how many brokers I cover, there isn’t really a set number because I’m always looking to build new relationships. There could be three new brokerages opening tomorrow that I’m not aware of today, so there’s always someone new to speak to.

The job is finding the people we should be building relationships with and then actually going and making those connections. You can’t sit there and wait for people to come to you, so you’ve got to keep moving.

What personal talent or skill is most valuable in doing your job?

I’m really old school with this stuff. It’s all about relationships. I could know a broker for years, go to the same events, have a few lunches and then further down the line, we might finally do that first deal together. That’s absolutely fine, because the relationship comes first and the business tends to follow.

Sponsored

Episode 5: Larger Loans and Complex Lending: Powered by Partnership podcast from Newcastle for Intermediaries

Sponsored by Newcastle for Intermediaries

Working this way involves a lot of graft, and I’ve always been quite simple in how I approach it. I pick up the phone, speak to people, ask questions, go and see them and try to keep my calendar as full as possible.

It’s really rare that the activity and effort go nowhere. There’ll normally be a positive outcome eventually if you’re putting the effort in, even if you don’t see it straight away.

What personal talent or skill would you most like to improve on?

Probably knowing when to stop thinking about something and just keep doing what I’m doing. That’s difficult because when something isn’t working, your first thought is: right, what do I need to change?

But I’ve learnt that changing what you’re doing isn’t always the answer, and sometimes it’s more about reacting to what’s in front of you. So if I spot an opportunity to get out and spend more time with brokers, I’ll take it, whether that’s grabbing a coffee, having some lunch or getting a meeting in the diary.

I don’t consciously think about any of that as a strategy because, for me, it’s more action, reaction, action, reaction. Something happens, you react to it and make the most of what’s in front of you.

What is the hardest part of your job?

I’d definitely say consistency, because every day is different. You can never tell how a day is going to go, but you’ve still got the same expectations every day.

You could have two great months and suddenly the third comes along and nothing’s happening. You’re making the calls and booking meetings, you’re doing all the same things that worked before and nothing’s coming from it.

That’s when you start thinking: do I need to do something different or do I keep hammering the same nail? The hardest part is keeping that activity consistent without thinking about it too much, because sometimes you’ve just got to keep going.

What do you love most about your job?

I like the fact that the market’s constantly changing because it keeps the job fun and you don’t really know what’s coming next. You can get very good at one particular part of the market, but then things change and you’ve got to react.

That’s what keeps me interested because you don’t get to decide what happens next. You’ve got to stay curious, understand what’s happening around you and work out where the opportunities are.

What types of cases are you seeing most frequently at the moment?

A lot of people are looking to buy time at the moment, and the slower property market is naturally feeding into bridging. Someone might have bought a property, refurbished it and planned to sell it for a profit, but the sale is now taking longer than they expected.

Suddenly they’re getting towards the end of the bridge and thinking: ‘What do I do now?’ I’m seeing a lot of rebridges, both regulated and unregulated, and it tends to come back to that same point of buying time.

Developers are facing a similar problem because they might have completed a scheme, but the units aren’t selling quickly enough. They can’t sit around waiting for buyers when they need that capital for the next project, so refinancing can give them the time and cash flow to move ahead.

What is the most unusual or challenging property deal you have been involved in?

I had a really good one recently, which was about £2.2m and involved four barns arranged around a courtyard. Two had been completely converted into residential properties, while the other two were still back to brick and nowhere near finished.

The existing development finance needed refinancing, but that wasn’t going to solve everything because they still needed money to finish the other two barns. So we refinanced the existing facility and provided a drawdown facility to complete the remaining works. It’s the sort of case I enjoy, because you’ve got to look at what’s actually happening rather than just look at one part of it and say yes or no.

That’s one of the great things about Glenhawk, because we’re specialists in short-term property finance and can get into the details of a case. It’s about understanding what the borrower is trying to achieve and working out whether there’s a structure that makes sense.

What was your motivation for choosing this career?

I completely fell into it, and there was no grand plan whatsoever. Before finance, I was actually a manager at Starbucks, so it’s fair to say I didn’t take the most obvious route into specialist lending.

But once I got into sales, I realised I was enjoying the process of getting better and learning how to speak to different people. From there, one thing led to another, and I eventually found myself in specialist property finance.

A lot comes down to opportunity and whatever you manage to expose yourself to at the time. Once you’re in this industry, though, I think curiosity is crucial, because things are always moving and you need to keep on top of that.

What do you think brokers value most about working with you and Glenhawk?

I love getting to the point where a broker feels they can just throw a case at me and say: “What do you think?” Brokers might have 100 or 200 lenders whose products and criteria they’re trying to remember, and that’s an overwhelming job.

Quite often, a broker will bring me something that, in their eyes, doesn’t quite work. But I might take a look at it and realise that if we do it slightly differently, we might have something. Sometimes just looking at the structure differently can save the deal.

That’s what I want brokers to remember about Glenhawk, because if you’ve got a case sitting on your desk and you’re not quite sure whether it works, just pick up the phone and run it past me. There might be a different way of looking at it and, if there is, we’ll try to find it.