Patrick Crandall (left), Thomas Whitesell (top right), and Jason Baker.
Patrick Crandall, Thomas Whitesell and Jason Baker
Senior managing director; head of debt investment group; senior managing director at Kennedy Wilson
Last year's rank: 51
It’s been an eventful couple of years for Thomas Whitesell’s debt investment group at Kennedy Wilson, as they’ve dealt with changing firms, navigating inflation and the threat of recession.
After coming over from Pacific Western Bank via acquisition during the dark days of the 2023 regional banking crisis, Whitesell’s 40-person operation at Kennedy Wilson spent months laying the groundwork to roll out a nonrecourse construction platform in combination with Fairfax Financial.
The legwork proved beneficial, as Kennedy Wilson originated $3.6 billion across 38 transactions in 2024, carrying an average loan size of $96.4 million, almost all of it in multifamily and student housing. In fact, about $1 billion of those organizations were for purpose-built student housing.
“We had a tremendous start to the platform,” said Pat Crandall. “We’ve had tremendous reception from the market. Fewer competitors were originating construction financing last year than there are now, so we were able to capture a good chunk of the market for multifamily and residential.”
Crandall emphasized that “it’s all heads and beds” for his team, as the residential-only mandate places emphasis beyond traditional multifamily and student housing into build-to-rent developments and office-to-residential conversions. The team was active on both the West Coast and the East Coast with deals done in New York, D.C. and South Florida as well as Phoenix and Texas.
“It definitely runs the spectrum. The deals overall that make the most sense are more suburban in character, maybe more garden-style, the cost metrics and return on cost profile just seems to work better,” said Jason Baker. “That said, there are more mid-rise and high-rise projects that we’re doing in certain markets that are more supply constrained.”
Two years into a shotgun marriage with Kennedy Wilson, it seems like the team couldn’t be happier or more successful.
“We built an incredible culture when we were at the bank, and brought that culture to Kennedy Wilson, and it was a remarkable ease of integration between the two firms,” said Crandall. “This is a well-oiled machine, and everyone likes working with one another.”
