A year of leadership change and senior staff walk-out rattled El Segundo-based Thorofare Capital. Now, the commercial real estate lender is losing its founder and long-time chief executive.
Kevin Miller will soon exit Thorofare, which he led for 16 years, according to a letter to investors obtained by the Business Journal and confirmed by the firm. This comes after a handful of leaders shuffled out starting April 2025, including its head of originations and three managing directors.
As Kevin transitions out, his brother, Brendan Miller, who serves as Thorofare’s chief investment officer and president, will take the reins without assuming the chief executive role.
“The decision was mutual and amicable, and the company wishes Kevin well in his future endeavors,” Thorofare wrote in an emailed statement to the Business Journal. “Kevin will always be supportive of the business he founded and support its continuing success.”
Kevin has not made his next step public. News of his departure came as a surprise to investors and former employees who described the firm, and the investor relationships Kevin doted on, as his “pride and joy.”
“He put his heart, sweat, and tears into the company,” said a former senior member of the firm who left last year. “He had big aspirations to make the company quite large, so I’m not sure what changed his mind in that.”
The ex-senior staffer said Kevin’s exit “doesn’t add up” and widens the void in Thorofare’s top ranks.
“When you look at the turnover and you look at all the senior people that left, you ask yourself like, ‘OK, who are they bringing on? How are they refilling the benches?’ because, obviously, the leadership has been depleted,” the ex-staffer said.
Last August, Thorofare lost Felix Gutnikov, who joined in 2011 and eventually led originations, helping grow the firm’s managed assets from less than $100 million to more than $1 billion. A few months earlier, originations managing directors David Perlman and Jonathan Hart also stepped away.
Robert Worthington and Brett Tomich, two investor relations leaders who worked directly under Kevin, left in December and February, respectively.
Thorofare maintains that its remaining leadership team, dotted across its L.A., New York, Miami and Dallas offices, is “well-positioned” to continue executing on the firm’s investment strategy.
“Thorofare is also anchored on a strong commercial real estate finance originations team, built around a regionally based leadership structure,” the firm wrote in its statement. “There is no need for a formal replacement (to Kevin) as there is no impact to the continuity of the business or its investment activities.”
Thorofare’s parent company, Boston-based Callodine Group, acquired the debt manager in 2021 and planned its rebrand to Callodine Thorofare, but Thorofare held onto its original name.
At the time of the acquisition, Callodine Founder and Chief Executive James Morrow said he planned to take Thorofare, which he called a “best-in-class real estate investment firm,” to the next level. The debt manager has been on its fifth flagship fund since 2017, navigating a commercial real estate market upended by elevated interest rates.
The $1-billion Thorofare Asset Based Lending Fund V counts 1,781 investors, according to an October regulatory filing. Industrial refinancings dominate the fund’s recent loans, the latest of which was a $31-million floating-rate senior construction loan for a Huntington Beach warehouse.
