Financing family-office private-equity portfolios with NAV-based facilities at around 30% LTV.
Family offices hold growing private-equity portfolios that are valuable but illiquid. NAV-based facilities lend against the net asset value of a diversified fund or direct portfolio at conservative loan-to-value levels, releasing liquidity without forced sales. This paper explains how these facilities are structured, priced and negotiated — and where the risks sit.
Financing family-office private-equity portfolios with NAV-based facilities at around 30% LTV.
Part of Matchpoint Partners' proprietary research programme — original, data-driven analysis grounded in live deal experience. Read the full paper: framework, structures, worked examples and data.
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The paper sets out the mechanics of net-asset-value lending for family offices: what lenders will accept as a borrowing base, how diversification and concentration tests shape eligibility, how valuation is verified and contested, and what covenant architecture — loan-to-value triggers, cash-sweep mechanics, cure rights — a borrower should expect. It treats the facility from both sides of the table, showing what the lender is solving for and where the borrower retains genuine negotiating leverage.
It also positions NAV facilities against the alternatives a family office might consider when it needs liquidity from a private-markets portfolio: selling positions in the secondary market, slowing new commitments, or borrowing at the holding-company level against other assets. Each route carries a different mix of cost, speed and signalling, and the paper works through the trade-offs.
Distributions from private-equity funds have been slower and lumpier than many allocators planned for, leaving portfolios cash-rich on paper and cash-poor in practice. At the same time, attractive new opportunities — co-investments, secondaries, private credit — keep arriving. NAV-based lending has moved from a niche GP tool to a mainstream liquidity instrument for sophisticated private wealth, and family offices that understand the structure negotiate materially better terms.
Principals and investment heads of family offices with meaningful private-equity or direct portfolios; CIOs managing commitment pacing and liquidity; and advisers structuring portfolio-level financing. It is equally useful for wealthy families considering their first facility and for experienced borrowers refinancing an existing line.
Matchpoint Partners arranges portfolio-level and holding-company financing for family offices and sponsors across the GCC, India and the UK. The structuring questions in this paper — borrowing-base design, valuation mechanics, covenant headroom — mirror the points we negotiate on live NAV and promoter-financing mandates. Talk to a partner if your portfolio is asset-rich but your calendar of opportunities will not wait for distributions.
It is a loan secured against the net asset value of a private-markets portfolio — typically fund interests or a diversified set of direct holdings — rather than against a single asset. It releases liquidity without selling positions, with the lender protected by conservative advance rates, diversification tests and loan-to-value covenants.
A secondary sale crystallises pricing — often at a discount — and permanently surrenders future upside. A NAV facility keeps the portfolio intact and the upside with the owner, at the cost of interest and covenants. The paper sets out a framework for choosing between them based on cost, speed and signalling.
Because the collateral is hard to value precisely and slow to sell. Fund interests are marked periodically rather than priced continuously, and realising them under pressure means a discounted secondary sale. Lenders protect themselves with low advance rates, diversification tests and covenant triggers — which is also why well-diversified, high-quality portfolios command better terms.
The core architecture is loan-to-value triggers that tighten as collateral values fall, cash-sweep mechanics that divert distributions to repayment past certain thresholds, and cure rights that give the borrower time to restore headroom. Negotiating sensible trigger levels and cure periods upfront matters far more than the headline margin when fund marks move against you.
When the underlying problem is portfolio quality rather than timing. Borrowing against a portfolio that is genuinely impaired adds leverage to a loss, not a bridge to recovery. NAV facilities suit owners with sound assets and a temporary cash-flow gap; where the portfolio itself is the issue, a secondary sale or commitment pause is usually the more honest answer.
Talk to a partner about how it applies to your transaction.
