How decisions get made here: the people, and who does what
Seven people run this. Buying sits with the investment and development directors, the numbers with finance, the building afterwards with asset management. Your money is committed when you subscribe to a specific offer document for a specific building, and not before. The non-executive director sits outside all of it.
Written by Richard Peak, Managing Director. Last reviewed September 2026.
Who finds the buildings
Investment stock sits with Edward Harrowsmith, Director, Investments. Development and land sits with Max Reeves, Director, Developments. Both are chartered surveyors, which matters less for the introductions than for what happens after them.
Sourcing is unglamorous. Agents, owners, solicitors and previous vendors, some of it off-market, most of it stock we decline. A building reaching an offer document is the small end of a long funnel, and we would rather describe it that way than imply every opportunity is proprietary.
Richard Peak, Managing Director, is a chartered surveyor and involved in the loans as well as running the business day to day.
Who runs the due diligence
The surveying work is done in-house. Covenant, lease structure, pitch, rent against tone, repairing liability, reversion, the physical building.
Independent professionals are instructed for everything else. On developments this is explicit, with planning, project delivery and legal advisers appointed by Helmsley and their reports made available to members alongside a rationale for purchase at commencement. The same discipline of external instruction applies on investment purchases.
Tom Boyle, Head of Finance, MAAT, holds the financial side. Cash flow, the numbers presented to investors, the quarterly distributions once the building is trading.
When your money is committed
This is the part worth reading twice.
An interest is not committed by an expression of interest, by a conversation, or by being shown a building. It is committed when a participant subscribes to the offer document for one named syndicate, for a stated amount, with a minimum stake of £25,000. The fees and any profit share for that syndicate are set out in that document.
Who manages the building afterwards
Alexia Swift-Cookson, Head of Asset Management, holds the asset once it is bought. Rent collection, the tenant relationship, insurance, the service charge, rent reviews, lease renewals, dilapidations, and the reletting if a tenant goes.
This is where returns are protected or lost, and it is the longest phase by a wide margin. A building held for fifteen years was bought in a fortnight.
Decisions of substance are not hers. Rental income is distributed quarterly net of management costs, an independent valuation is obtained annually, and decisions are taken by a 75% majority of participants. No participant may hold more than 25%, so no single holder controls a syndicate, and neither does Helmsley when it participates.
Who talks to investors, and who sits outside
Investor contact runs through the directors responsible for the building in question, supported by the client portal, which shows each holding with its syndication price, current valuation, rent and yield, alongside documents, messages and forms.
Ged Keary, Non-Executive Director, ACIB, sits outside the executive. A non-executive is there to question the people who do the deals, and a banking background is a useful discipline in a business that lends as well as invests.