Fund managers and investors that are hungry for alternative capital sources are exploring net asset value (NAV) financing. Although NAV loans have been around for nearly two decades in the private equity sector, interest for the vehicle has been growing among infrastructure investors during the past four years. Capital markets that virtually shut down during the onset of COVID-19 ended up pushing NAV finance more to the forefront.
“People were looking for other alternatives, and they became educated on NAV finance. Since then, we’ve seen a pretty consistent year-over-year increase in opportunity, as well as a meaningful level of deployment,” says Dane Graham, partner at 17Capital. Founded in 2008, 17Capital was one of the early entrants into NAV finance and has raised and deployed around $13 billion in capital to the private equity sector following that credit strategy.
In a nutshell, NAV lending is used by managers to create additional investment capacity or acc