NAIC selects FoFs to deploy capital in diverse-owned business

The National Association of Investment Companies (NAIC) announced that it has chosen five firms to allocate billions of dollars of growth equity capital to drive scale and enhance innovation in ethnically diverse and women-owned business enterprises.

The trade association for and largest network of diverse- and women-owned private equity firms and hedge funds selected: Barings Alternative Investments; GCM Grosvenor; Muller & Monroe Asset Management; Neuberger Berman Private Equity; and The Rock Creek Group.

The FoFs are thought to be the best suited to perform the requisite due diligence to identify high-performing growth equity investment firms while facilitating the deployment of capital to the firms. They will invest 100% of the capital received with strong diverse-owned firms.

This is the completion of the second phase of the NAIC Minority Growth Equity Funds Initiative, which was launched last October to support job-creation and to foster innovation and growth for diverse enterprises.

“We are very pleased to reach this important milestone for the Minority Growth Equity Funds Initiative,” said Robert Green, president and CEO of NAIC. “This initiative will provide diverse-owned businesses with the capital resources needed to produce an upward trend and expand capacity while participating growth investors will identify new high-performing investment opportunities among these historically underserved businesses.”

The effort is made possible through a grant from the Minority Business Development Agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The NAIC Minority Growth Equity Funds will likely work with many of the businesses that are among the hardest hit by the economic fallout from the pandemic.

NAIC’s membership is comprised of more than 80 firms that collectively manage over $165 billion in institutional assets.