Welcome to Lender Lens, our series for profiling leaders in the Lender community.
With private credit playing an increasingly important role in the financial system, we wanted to find out how lenders are navigating the evolving landscape and how they assess the market in the coming years.
In a market where NAV financing is becoming increasingly crowded, few firms can claim the singular focus and longevity of 17Capital. With a 17-year track record and over $15 billion deployed across 120 transactions, the firm has carved out a clear leadership position in this specialized corner of private capital.
We sat down with David Wilson, Partner at 17Capital, to discuss their disciplined approach to underwriting, the edge their scale and focus provide, and how their partnership with Oaktree is helping them expand their reach, without compromising their independence.
From sector preferences to team building, Wilson shares a behind-the-scenes look at what continues to set 17Capital apart.
Does 17Capital take a generalist approach to NAV financing, or are there specific sectors you favor or avoid when underwriting fund portfolios?
At 17Capital we are focused on providing NAV financing against portfolios of private equity assets. Specifically, we target buyout portfolios – i.e. performing, profitable companies, with proven business models – and primarily in Europe and North America. This is the expertise of our investment team, and we don’t stray outside of this asset class, e.g. into real estate or venture capital NAV. In terms of specific sectors, we look to avoid portfolios with a lot of cyclicality, and because we lend to the highest quality private equity groups, our portfolio looks very similar to the buyout industry as a whole on a lookthrough basis, with exposure to healthcare, technology, financials and business services.
As more players enter the NAV financing space, how is 17Capital positioning itself to maintain a competitive edge while preserving discipline?
Our competitive edge is embedded in our unrivalled 17 year track record dedicated solely to NAV financing. It is all we do. We don’t run into conflicts that would arise if we were also lending to individual companies within a portfolio or if we were invested in a minority stake of a PE firm. It is also about scale. We have a 110 person team and we have deployed ~$15bn across ~120 individual transactions. There is nobody else out there with dedicated capital of this scale. This doesn’t make us complacent, and we work hard as a team to ensure we continue to be the obvious and preferred option for brand name private equity managers. We continually innovate on structures to offer the most fit-for-purpose solutions. Critically, we provide real certainty of execution to our clients – they come to us to get a NAV financing transaction done. We have seen a few more groups looking to launch a NAV finance offering, but so far this is all very early stage and obviously they do not possess the dedicated approach, scale and track record of our business.
What has Oaktree’s majority ownership brought to the business?
17Capital entered into a strategic partnership with Oaktree in 2022, and everything is going very well. From the 17Capital side, Oaktree brings a large network of sponsor relationships, which helps us with market penetration and dealflow, particularly in the USA, as well as deep insight into the credit markets more generally. From the Oaktree side, 17Capital has expanded the private credit offering into NAV finance; an area they saw as fast growing and attractive. Beyond that, the respective teams share a culture of investment discipline and a focus on risk, and the partnership works. It was important for all stakeholders that 17Capital continue to manage the NAV finance business independently, and there has been no integration of teams, or sharing of deal information across firms.
What unique skillsets or experience do you look for when building teams to underwrite NAV loans? How does that differ from more traditional private credit underwriting?
NAV financing does require a unique combination of skillsets and we have shaped our organisational capabilities accordingly. Our team has unrivalled expertise in assessing the quality of underlying private portfolio companies; but also in how private equity funds are constituted and managed. With a 17 year track record, we know how to achieve and maintain diversification benefits inherent in a good NAV financing transaction. Our investment team and IC has backgrounds across investment banking, leveraged finance, mezz finance, structured credit, subscription line financing, secondaries, and legal / structuring; and has significant experience through market cycles and financial crises.
Finally, we’re curious, where did the name “17Capital” come from?
There is nothing really mysterious here I’m afraid. The number “17” is just close to the hearts of our founders, for different reasons. We are celebrating “17 years of 17Capital” this year (2008 – 2025), and we were recently asked by a prospective investor, whether we will be changing our name next year.
Stay in touch with all of our latest updates and articles. Sign up now.