Waypoint Real Estate Finance

Waypoint has assembled a dedicated real estate finance team with over 15 decades of experience and an excellent track record across £35 billion of finance deals.

The team comprises senior personnel with deep sector and exceptional market experience having worked through a number of cycles.

Chris Kelly

What is your background?

Chris has 30+ years’ experience in real estate banking for a variety of mainstream property lenders, investment banks, and specialist debt funds. Prior to joining Waypoint, Chris worked as a Director of Real Estate Finance at Barclays Bank and Santander Bank. He also worked in debt origination roles at Deutsche Bank, Anglo Irish Bank and Alvarium.

What are you responsible for?

Chris has responsibility for originating new lending opportunities for the Waypoint debt platform, structuring deals and taking these through to drawdown.
Jon Leefe

What is your background?

Jon has 5 years of experience working across investment advisory, real estate, and lending. Prior to joining Waypoint, Jon was working at Camdor Global Advisors, providing investment advisory and due diligence services to local authorities. He has experience of working with equity and debt across a variety of sectors, including real estate, private debt, and restructuring.

What are you responsible for?

Jon is responsible for investment analysis and underwriting within the Waypoint Group; this involves preparing cashflows, undertaking credit analysis, structuring, and drafting IC memos. He primarily works on the debt side of the Group, whilst also being involved in other Waypoint investment mandates.
Kirstyn Rutter

What are you responsible for?

Kirstyn is responsible for the real estate finance business and is a member of the investment committee. She also leads on special projects across the Waypoint Group at both a corporate and transactional level.

What’s your background?

Kirstyn has 15 years experience of working in real estate at Cushman & Wakefield, Local Shopping REIT and moved to Waypoint in 2013 as one of its founding members. She has experience in investment transactions, sourcing real estate debt in the UK and Europe, deal structuring and asset management.
Lewis Wheatman

What is your background?

Lewis has worked in the property industry since 2015, qualifying as a Chartered Surveyor at BNP Paribas Real Estate in 2018. He then joined CBRE in their international valuation team with a particular focus on European fund valuations. Later Lewis joined Montagu Evans’ valuation advisory team, working with both public and private sector clients. He joined Waypoint in 2023 as a Valuation, Investment Analyst and Transaction Manager.

What are you responsible for?

Lewis is responsible for the analysis of new lending opportunities, due diligence, and transaction management of ongoing lending at Waypoint, as well as providing general support to other Waypoint group investment mandates.
Mike Riley

What are you responsible for?

Mike is responsible for business strategy focusing on new business and initiatives for the Waypoint group. He specialises in financial structuring, capital raising and debt origination. Mike is a member of the investment committees.

What’s your background?

Mike has over 38 years property and lending experience which has included being joint MD- HVB Real Estate Capital,(Deutsche Pfandfriefbank) UK CRE lending, he established De Groot Collis finance CRE lending and was the Ex-CEO Quintain, CEO Local Shopping REIT and Castlemore Capital.
Nick Gregory

What are you responsible for?

At Waypoint, Nick is responsible for real estate investments across the Waypoint Group. He chairs the investment committees and is also responsible for portfolio performance, client reporting and asset management strategy.

What’s your background?

Nick has over 30 years’ experience in the commercial and residential real estate sectors. Having started out at Chesterton he moved on to join Phillips & Drew/UBS and Castlemore before becoming Joint CEO of The Local Shopping REIT plc. In 2013 he co-founded Waypoint Asset Management with Mike Riley.
Stuart Scobie

What are you responsible for?

Stuart is responsible for bridge financing within the business from origination, underwriting through to transaction management.

What's your background?

Stuart has over 25 years’ experience in real estate, and having started his career in construction, he moved to a large family office for eight years where he asset managed properties on several large portfolios across all sectors in the UK and Europe. In 2007 he set up a niche investment agency and in 2010 ran a business providing advice to small family offices, property companies and institutions with a strong focus on distressed properties.
Tom Maskell

What's your background?

Tom qualified as a chartered surveyor in 2003 and have over 20 years experience in commercial property investment and development. Tom also has over a decade of experience in real estate finance, particularly within the residential development market. His career started at LSH and he also worked at C&W before setting up as a consultant in 2007.

What are you responsible for?

Tom is responsible for originating new lending opportunities for the Waypoint debt platform, structuring and taking these through to drawdown. With the help of the wider team he oversees the initial due diligence and management of ongoing lending.