Our People

Oculus brings together a highly experienced team with backgrounds in real estate investment and property development. The team has a proven track-record in delivering innovative solutions, pioneering construction and financing models to provide modern Specialised Supported Living accommodation that meets the needs of vulnerable people.

Our senior team includes:

Steve Scheetz

Principal and Co-Founder

Steve has over 25 years’ institutional real estate private equity investment experience spanning hospitality, senior housing and the care home sector in the US. He has had significant and/or controlling interests in two large scale, public senior care companies and 11 lodging companies, six of which were NYSE public companies.

Previously, Steve was the MD of real estate at business hotelier Extended Stay America, with a national brief including new unit development, value enhancement and growth. This embraced asset and portfolio acquisitions and sales, re-positionings, large scale merchant building programmes, master franchisee relationships alongside capital markets and financing initiatives.

During his career, Steve worked for two of the largest real estate private equity firms in the US, responsible for the identification, underwriting, valuation, financing and growth initiatives of the portfolio investments. The firms invested over $3 billion of institutional equity from their funds, controlling over $10 billion in assets in their portfolio companies across a variety of industries, with a heavy concentration in the hotel and senior care home sectors.

Steve has been involved in over 100 transactions over the last two decades totaling over $10 billion, including numerous public market executions on Wall Street, several notable IPOs, Tender Offers, Secondary Offerings and M&A transactions as well as several large-scale exits.

John Saunders

Principal and Co-Founder

John specialises in the inception, funding and execution of growth strategies, specifically market entry and acquisition, business development, new product innovation and business turnarounds.

He founded UK based Liquid Strategies as a boutique merchant banking operation with a proposition including institutional capital raises, the development of strategic business plans and the execution of growth strategies. John uses a highly analytical and research-driven approach to structuring and funding multi-faceted corporate ventures and commercial real estate transactions.

He was previously engaged by Extended Stay America to execute a growth strategy involving the development of 75 new fully-owned next-generation hotels. He formulated and implemented internal processes and reporting to manage the site identification and development process including site evaluation, feasibility and financial investment analysis and underwriting.

John’s corporate finance advisory projects have included structuring and securing a revolving development financing facility to support the construction and operational stabilisation for up to 100 UK nursing facilities and a to-be-formed and publicly listed UK nursing home REIT. His remit included proving the investment case at a site and portfolio level and establishing the investment process for development and subsequent exit/transition into the REIT.

Prior to founding Liquid Strategies, John served on the international management team of Equifax, Inc. as VP International Strategy and Market Development with responsibility for all operating countries outside the US, with specific accountability for formulating and executing a coherent growth and operating strategy for the newly formed international division.

Linda Desautels

Finance Director

Linda has over 33 years of financial, operational and accounting experience, with 25 years held in strategic leadership positions. During her career, she has focused mainly on health care delivery, managing care and hospital financial systems with extensive operational and financial infrastructure design expertise.

Previously, this included both large and small healthcare/medical management operations for the development of new systems, such as revenue cycle management, utilisation, case management, data analysis, Medicare/Medicaid programs, fraud and abuse detection, as well as new programme growth. She specifically developed programmes with a focus on managed care for adolescents, adults and seniors with needs such as behavioural health, substance abuse, autism, high risk and managing/creating specialised schools.

Since 2001, Linda has worked with many organisations to design administrative and financial infrastructures for start-ups, to sustain reorganisations, mergers, downsizing and/or fast-growing expansions. She has managed financial assets up to $600 million.

She was a finalist for the “CFO of the Year” award by the Hartford Business Journal in 2011.  She has served in many volunteer roles for the Connecticut Society of CPA’s to include Audit and Advisory Committees, Long Range Property Planning Board Chair for Girls Scouts of CT, as well as many other boards. From 1990-2001 she was the principal of her own Certified Public Accountant firm in Texas with a concentration in medical practices and hospital joint ventures. She currently holds Certified Public Accountant designation in Texas, USA.

Our team has over 100 years of combined experience in commercial real estate development, healthcare, finance and private equity fund management culminating in over £$11 billion of successfully closed, institutional real estate investments.