NLC team

Experienced team with a proven fund finance track record

Neno
Raic

Founding Partner

Neno is responsible for the overall management of NLC and investor relations. Prior to forming NLC, Neno was Head of Investec’s Fund Solutions Sales and Distribution.

In this capacity, Neno built Fund Solutions fundraising capabilities, raising first institutional capital in 2018 and over three years scaled the business to over €3bn of third-party capital. During his time at Investec Neno also grew fund finance loan distribution by more then 20 times, from €200m to over €4bn. Neno was part of Fund Solutions investment committee.

Prior to becoming the Head of Fund Solutions Sales and Distribution, Neno was part of Investec’s New York Fund Solutions team responsible for origination and structuring of fund financing loans.

Originally from Croatia, Neno moved to New York to attend university. Neno started his career at Lloyds Banking Group, where he worked in financial institution team focusing on Fund Finance.

Neno holds Bachelor of Business Administration from Baruch Zicklin School of Business.

Slade
Spalding

Founding Partner

Slade is responsible for leading and managing GP relationships. Slade has over 15 years of private equity and banking experience.

Prior to co-founding NLC, Slade was Co-Head of Capital Call Financing and the Head of GP Financing at Investec’s Funds Solutions team. Slade was one of the original members to join Investec’s Fund Solutions team and during his time ran and executed over €5.5bn of fund finance transactions globally across 30 fund managers and 45 funds including capital call, secondaries, GP led, NAV, and GP financing.

Slade formed part of the Fund Solution’s investment committee and was instrumental in originating and developing deep client relationships which drove turnover growth by more than 8 times and saw the team increase from 4 to over 20.

Slade started his career in South Africa and moved to the UK in 2008 as part of Investec’s treasury team to build out the institutional deposit base.

Slade holds a Bachelor of Information Systems from Bond University and is a Chartered Management Accountant.

Ian
Shanks

Senior Advisor and Chairman of the Investment Committee

Ian is senior advisor and chairman of NLC’s Investment committee. Ian has spent over 25 years working in the Private Equity and debt markets.

Ian started his career with Bank of Scotland (now Lloyds Banking Group), moving across to Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (the investment arm of Lloyds) which was sold in 2014 to Aberdeen Asset Management. In 2017 Aberdeen Asset Management merged with Standard Life, to create what is now called Abrdn.

In 1997, Ian was one of the founding team members of Bank of Scotland’s private equity team making LP investments into primary and secondary funds across Europe. During this period, Ian created the bank’s lending arm specifically focussed on providing financing solutions to private equity funds that encompassed capital call facilities, general partner support as well as leverage to both primary and secondary funds. The team was one of the very first focussed on this type of lending, later to be known as Fund Finance, and by 2006 the lending book was over £10bn with no recorded losses.

During the global financial crisis (GFC) the business was split into equity and debt. Equity eventually became a part of Scottish Widows, while the debt business was carved out into another area of Lloyds Bank which is now one of the leading Fund Finance providers.

Over the next decade, Ian focussed on the equity assets initially working on liquidating LP positions to help shrink the bank’s balance sheet exposure. Following the acquisition of Scottish Widows by Aberdeen, Ian helped re-build the equity business with new investment activities along with acquisitions of private equity fund of fund managers to increase and diversify the investment portfolio.

In 2018, post Aberdeen’s merger with Standard Life, Ian was asked to develop and build capital call financing capabilities to support a major UK insurance client called Phoenix to allow them to enter this market. Whilst persuading Phoenix to appoint Abrdn as a manager for their Capital Call Financing investments, Ian developed the strategy, designed the rating methodology, build the team and went onto source and execute significant deal flow. Within 12 months, Ian had fully deployed the initial Phoenix mandate and having established the business, proven its credentials as well as securing additional capital from new investors, Ian stepped aside to start his retirement before starting his role with NLC.