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 is responsible for originating new lending opportunities across the UK and Europe, structuring transactions and managing them through to drawdown. He also oversees the initial due diligence process and the ongoing management of the lending portfolio.

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.
Chris Wilton

What is your background?

Chris has worked in the property industry since 2015, having qualified as a chartered surveyor at Cushman & Wakefield, before joining Knight Frank working in its fund valuation team. He joined Waypoint in 2020 as an asset manager.

What are you responsible for?

Chris is responsible for identifying and developing new business opportunities to support the business’s strategic growth objectives. He focuses on expanding market presence and creating strong client relationships. He is also involved in transaction management across the business.
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 investment committee memos.
Kirstyn Rutter

What’s your background?

Kirstyn has 16 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.

What are you responsible for?

Kirstyn is responsible for the management of the real estate finance business and is a member of the investment committee.
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 he joined Montagu Evans’ valuation advisory team, working with both public and private sector clients. He joined Waypoint in 2023 to support the newly launched Real Estate Finance team.

What are you responsible for?

Lewis is responsible for the analysis of new lending opportunities, due diligence, and transaction management. He also assists with property asset management across a range of client mandates.
Mike Riley

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.

What are you responsible for?

Mike is responsible for business strategy. He specialises in financial structuring, capital raising and debt origination. Mike is a member of the investment committees.
Michael Kenney

What's your background?

Michael has over 35 years’ experience in banking, primarily within real estate finance. Most recently, he served as Managing Director and Head of UK Business Development at a sector-specialist German mortgage bank, leading the London-based team focused on originating large-ticket commercial property loans for corporate, private equity, and institutional investors. He has extensive experience across UK and European markets, spanning multiple property cycles and asset classes - including office, retail, industrial, logistics, and rented residential - across both development and investment financing within complex structures.

What are you responsible for?

Michael assists the team in identifying and developing new business opportunities for Waypoint’s real estate finance business. He also advises on complex structuring for development and investment loans. He sits on the real estate finance investment committee
Nick Gregory

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.

What are you responsible for?

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.
Stuart Scobie

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.

What are you responsible for?

Stuart is responsible for originating new lending opportunities, with a particular emphasis on residential bridging finance across the UK and Europe.
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. He is involved in loan structuring, initial due diligence and transaction management.