Silverleafe Capital Partners

All investment decisions are made by the firm's investment committee, which is staffed by the three co-founders: Thomas B. Winborne (CIO), Kemper W. Vest (President), and C. Thomas Brown Jr. (Managing Director). Winborne serves as the chief investment officer and leads portfolio construction. The committee requires unanimous consent for strategic allocation changes, a structural safeguard that ensures no single partner can alter the investment posture unilaterally.

Silverleafe sources private credit opportunities through regional banking relationships, direct borrower outreach, and partnerships with specialty finance platforms, primarily across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. Its real estate sourcing relies on local operator relationships and off-market transactions — the firm has historically avoided competitive auction processes. The founders' deep network in Virginia and the Carolinas functions as the primary origination engine.

Silverleafe operates as an outsourced chief investment officer — a hybrid structure that serves both families and mid-sized institutions. It is not a single-family office, though it shares the direct-investing posture and long-duration capital that characterize many SFOs. The firm's legal structure is a Virginia-registered investment advisor, and all three founding partners are equity owners with no outside sponsor.

The firm uses both. Silverleafe runs direct sleeves in private credit and real estate — originating and underwriting deals itself — while selecting third-party managers for absolute-return hedge fund strategies and certain specialty equity mandates. This bifurcated model allows the firm to control costs on core allocations while accessing external expertise for satellite positions.

Silverleafe has historically avoided venture capital, cryptocurrency, and commodities futures. The firm's investment committee has expressed a preference for cash-flowing assets with contractual or hard-asset backing — private credit with lender protections, necessity-based real estate, and dividend-paying public equities — over appreciation-dependent strategies that require secondary market exits to generate returns.

Silverleafe has not publicly structured co-investment vehicles alongside external general partners. When the firm commits to private credit or real estate, it typically does so through direct origination rather than through a GP's co-investment sleeve. This posture reflects the firm's preference for controlling the underwriting, legal documentation, and exit timing of its private-market exposures.

Silverleafe uses tax-managed separate accounts for its public equity allocations rather than pooled vehicles like mutual funds or ETFs. This structure enables the firm to harvest tax losses at the individual security level for each client, a feature designed specifically for families with significant realized gains from operating-company exits or real estate sales.