Neuberger Berman Grows Private Equity Fund Offering for Financial Intermediaries

London, April 11, 2024 – Neuberger Berman, a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager, continues to make global private equity offerings more accessible to eligible retail and professional investors with the introduction of the NB Direct Private Equity Fund 2024* and the NB Global Private Equity Access Fund.

Neuberger Berman leverages a global platform with a rich history in both private and public markets. Within alternatives, Neuberger Berman capitalises on the expertise of more than 430 private markets professionals and the use of local distribution partnerships to manage $129 billion of assets. In 2023, NB Private Markets committed over $14 billion across co-investments, primary and secondary investments and private debt.

* Effective 13 March 2024, the fund name changed from NB Direct Private Equity Fund 2023 ELTIF to NB Direct Private Equity Fund 2024.

NB Direct Private Equity Fund 2024

With fundraising launched in March 2023 and open for subscriptions until December 2024, the NB Direct Private Equity Fund 2024 delivers a strategy consistent with prior vintages and aims to offer investors broad diversification with over 30 different positions through direct co-investments across various geographies, industries, enterprise value sizes and value creation strategies in a closed ended structure. A new feature of this vintage is the Article 8 designation under the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). The minimum investment required for most share classes is €25,000.

Driven by the network of relationships across the global NB Private Markets platform, co-investment deal flow examined by the investment team averaged more than 11 deals per week in 2023, versus an average of eight deals per week over the prior three calendar years. This volume continues to enable the team to take a highly selective approach to building a diversified portfolio of co-investments alongside leading private equity managers.

NB Global Private Equity Access Fund

Launched in December 2022 for professional and institutional investors, the NB Global Private Equity Access Fund provides direct exposure to private companies in a semi-liquid evergreen structure, focused on co-investments with a minority allocation to secondary investments. The Fund offers a simple, minimum subscription of €10,000, and redemption process with opportunities to invest and redeem on a monthly basis.

The NB Global Private Equity Access Fund also delivers a range of regular reporting documents on strategy, portfolio, and holdings via its website, providing timely transparency to its investors. The team evaluates highly attractive private equity investment opportunities alongside experienced and well-resourced lead managers, with a particular focus on less cyclical, more resilient, and market leading businesses.

Investment Environment Outlook

José Luis González Pastor, one of the senior investment professionals leading both funds, says: “In recent years, the experience for public market investors was volatile with high inflation, a global pandemic and increases in interest rates to levels not seen in more than a decade. Within private equity, the journey was smoother, reinforcing the core advantages of private equity of strong historical returns by outperforming public markets over long periods of time, lower volatility, and diversification benefits.

The record-high dry powder reserves in 2023 rose to $2.59 trillion, suggesting potential for significant private equity activity as values slowly recover and conditions improve.¹ We anticipate the level of interest and engagement from clients will continue to increase, as regulation changes and new funds launch into the private equity space.”

José Cosio, Head of Global Intermediary (ex US), comments ‘‘Demand for private market strategies has remained strong in 2024, as investors continue to search for portfolio diversification and sources of long term robust returns. The deep expertise of Neuberger Berman’s global private equity team has ensured a continuous pipeline of co-investment opportunities for our clients, a trend we see continuing.”

Investing in NB Direct Private Equity Fund 2024 and NB Global Private Equity Access Fund is subject to risk, including changing market conditions, no assurance of investment return, legal, tax and regulatory risks, use of borrowing and leverage, highly competitive market for investment opportunities, reliance on key management personnel, potential conflicts of interest, limited liquidity, geopolitical, valuation, material, non-public information and long-term nature risk.

About Neuberger Berman

Neuberger Berman is an employee-owned, private, independent investment manager founded in 1939 with 2,800 employees in 26 countries. The firm manages $463 billion of equities, fixed income, private equity, real estate and hedge fund portfolios for global institutions, advisors and individuals. Neuberger Berman’s investment philosophy is founded on active management, fundamental research and engaged ownership. UNPRI named the firm a Leader, a designation awarded to fewer than 1% of investment firms for excellence in environmental, social and governance practices. Neuberger Berman has been named by Pensions & Investments as the #1 or #2 Best Place to Work in Money Management for each of the last ten years (firms with more than 1,000 employees). Visit www.nb.com for more information. Data as of December 31, 2023.

Biography José Luis González Pastor

José Luis González Pastor is a Managing Director of Neuberger Berman in the Private Equity team and a senior member of the firm’s Private Investment Portfolios and Co-Investments group where he leads fund investments and direct co-investments. Prior to joining the firm in 2012, Mr. González worked at Qualitas Equity Partners, a Spanish Private Equity Fund focused on the Iberia middle-market. Before that, Mr. González worked as Investment Banking Analyst at DC Advisory Partners (formerly known as Atlas Capital Close Brothers and currently Daiwa Securities). Mr. González received an MBA with honors from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a MA with honors in International Studies at the Lauder Institute of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. González graduated with a BA in Business Administration and a LLB in Law from Universidad Pontificia Comillas (ICADE).

Media Contact:

Fiona Kehily
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Fiona.Kehily@nb.com