The person behind the work
I look for what connects the opportunity to the outcome.
Alastair Hoyne, founder, author and host.
Across banking, investment management and property finance, one lesson has stayed with me: an attractive idea only matters if the pieces can be made to work together. I founded Finanze Group, wrote The Finanze Framework™ and host The Property Escalator™ to examine those connections in practice.
My journey
A career built across business and capital.
Move through the stages to see how an early interest in building things became a more connected way of thinking about property and finance.
Entrepreneurship came early.
While at university I founded and sold two businesses. The experience taught me to test an idea in the real world, take responsibility for the result and learn what a spreadsheet alone cannot tell you.
That practical instinct stayed with me as my work moved into finance and larger organisations.
Connecting the desks.
Working with non-bank financial institutions showed me how a client’s real needs can cross the boundaries between products. Markets, transaction banking, securities services and other teams each saw part of the picture.
The useful work was understanding the business behind the request and connecting those parts to a more considered outcome.
Leadership at scale.
I later served as COO of the Hong Kong branch of a Korean investment manager with $31bn under management. Operating inside a complex organisation sharpened my interest in governance, execution and what makes a strategy hold together beyond the presentation.
Living and working in Hong Kong also widened my perspective on how markets and cultures shape decisions.
Backing ideas and asking harder questions.
Consulting brought me into venture capital, private equity, real estate, renewables, crypto, FinTech and PropTech. The sectors differed, but the questions were familiar: what creates value, how is it funded, what could break, and who will execute?
That range made me less interested in one fashionable answer and more interested in the relationships between the parts.
Making the structure work.
I founded Finanze Group to bring a connected perspective into property finance. An investor’s opportunity rarely fits inside a single product: value, legal structure, funding, costs and repayment need to be considered together.
The businesses now address distinct needs across analysis, broking, specialist lending and access to estate planning through the relevant partner route. Explore Finanze Group ↗
From private work to public conversation.
The Finanze Framework™ puts the ideas into a practical book. The Property Escalator™ explores decisions with investors and practitioners who have lived through them. Articles and media contributions let me test a question from another angle.
The aim is to give people a clearer way to think, while keeping the underlying work grounded in evidence and experience.
How I think
Better decisions come from seeing more of the picture.
Question the assumptions.
Separate what is known from what is hoped for. A convincing pitch can hide a weak exit or a cost that was never modelled.
Connect the parts.
Opportunity, finance, legal work and execution do not exist in isolation. Understand how a change in one affects the others.
Follow the outcome.
Good ideas only matter if they can be delivered. Look beyond completion to repayment, ownership, cash returned and what happens next.
What I am building now
One perspective. Several ways to use it.
The personal site brings the thinking together. You can read the book, join a conversation, explore an article or follow a business route when you have a defined need.
For my perspective on resilience, systems and long-term ownership, read Building a Business That Outlives the Cycle.
Experience and accreditations
Professional background.
Investment banking, investment management, consulting, venture capital, private equity and entrepreneurship.
Explore the global career behind the thinking.
Hover or select a year to follow the journey.Promotions and private membership business. Founded while at university and sold via a trade sale in 2005.
Online real-estate portal. Founded while at university and sold via a trade sale in 2007.
Supported the Managing Director of Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities Client Management UK, covering global financial institution clients.
Managed relationships with 32 priority Asia-Pacific financial institutions across Société Générale’s global-markets franchise.
Supported cross-asset sales and marketing across foreign exchange, rates, credit, commodities and equities, coordinating structured client reviews and identifying commercial opportunities across the bank. Doubled annual revenue across my own client portfolio from approximately US$40m to US$80m.
The role established much of the institutional-client, capital-markets and relationship-management experience that later informed my approach to advisory, property finance and business building.
Created and led a global investor-client management function coordinating institutional coverage, account planning, origination and onboarding across New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Co-led a US$25m transformation programme spanning front office, finance, technology, operations and risk, re-engineering infrastructure, policies, onboarding and due-diligence processes.
The programme was delivered on time and under budget, with the associated initiatives helping increase annual institutional investor-client revenue to approximately US$500m.
The role combined global client leadership, commercial strategy, operating-model transformation and senior stakeholder management.
Engaged to build a new institutional investment platform and international distribution capability.
Developed the strategy, operating requirements, client segmentation, competitive analysis, marketing materials and institutional due-diligence process.
Established four private-equity vehicles and helped build institutional sales and marketing capability across Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
Led global growth and non-investment operations for the Hong Kong business of an international asset-management group.
Responsibilities included fund establishment, investor prioritisation, licensing, compliance, due diligence, communications and external service-provider relationships.
Launched two Luxembourg equity UCITS vehicles together with further Cayman and alternative strategies, secured the firm’s Type 1 licence and undertook Responsible Officer responsibilities.
Represented the business internationally in fundraising and investor engagement across the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Founded a Hong Kong property business focused on identifying, assessing and executing real-estate opportunities.
Led opportunity analysis, commercial negotiations, transaction structuring and relationships with investors, counterparties and professional advisers.
This experience formed part of the transition between my institutional financial-services career and my subsequent work across property strategy, brokerage and specialist lending.
Founded and led a Hong Kong-based strategy and implementation consultancy advising founders, C-suites and boards across investment management, private equity, hedge funds, fintech, real estate, renewable energy, manufacturing and technology.
Mandates spanned management buyouts, international expansion, fundraising, distribution and operating-model redesign, with a focus on turning commercial objectives into practical execution.
Selected outcomes included helping a real-estate private-equity client double assets under management while reducing fixed and running costs by more than 40%, and building a 10MW Australian renewable-energy pipeline within 30 days.
Founded Finanze Group to build a more connected approach to property strategy, finance and execution.
Today, the Group’s principal property and finance businesses are:
- Finanze Strategy: property strategy, consulting and publishing
- Finanze Property: specialist property and business finance brokerage
- Finanze Capital: direct specialist short-term property lending
- Finanze Legacy: estate planning for property investors and families
As Founder & CEO, I lead group strategy, product development, major transactions, funding relationships, technology, brand and the continued development of the Finanze operating platform.
Main locationAdditional locations
Qualifications and accreditations.
Current qualifications
BSc (Hons) Management & Strategy, Aston University.
- Certificate in Mortgage Advice and Practice (CeMAP)
- Certified Practitioner in Specialist Property Finance (CPSP)
Previous Hong Kong qualifications and regulatory role
- Type 1: Dealing in Securities (HKSI)
- Type 4: Advising on Securities (HKSI)
- Type 9: Asset Management (HKSI)
- Responsible Officer, Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), Hong Kong
Current roles and registrations
Professional responsibilities.
Alastair Hoyne
FCA-approved senior management roles
At Finanze Ltd, trading as Finanze Property:
- SMF3: Executive Director
- SMF16: Compliance Oversight
Finanze Ltd · Finanze Property
FCA authorised and regulated
Financial Services Register reference: 990498.
- Credit broking
- Debt adjusting (limited)
- Debt counselling (limited)
- Agreeing to carry on a regulated activity (limited)
Activities are subject to the firm’s permissions and applicable limitations.
Finanze Capital Ltd · Finanze Capital
Registered for anti-money laundering purposes
Finanze Capital Ltd is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. It is registered with the Financial Conduct Authority for anti-money laundering purposes under FCA registration number 1013248.
Finanze Strategy Ltd · Finanze Strategy & Finanze Legacy (trading names)
Memberships and registrations
- The Property Ombudsman: member of the redress scheme
- National Association of Property Sourcing Agents (NAPSA): member
- HMRC registration for anti-money laundering supervision
Awards and recognition
Recognition along the way.
Top 30 UK brokers.
Bridging & Commercial
Top 40 most influential property professionals.
Bridging & Commercial
Top 40 Industry Heroes.
Bridging & Commercial
Rising Star of the Year.
NACFB Commercial Broker Awards
Scale-Up Entrepreneur of the Year.
Great British Entrepreneur Awards · Finanze Group
Entrepreneur of the Year.
Variety North West PROPS Awards
Beyond the desk
Space to think differently.
Golf is one of the ways I step away from a screen. A round at my local course demands patience, attention and the ability to reset after a poor shot. I enjoy the game for its own sake, and for the space it creates to think.
Time with family and friends, travel, reading and other interests offer a perspective that a working week rarely does. They shape my thinking as much as my professional work.
Away from the deskExplore further