Client story: Investec

The context:

Founded in Johannesburg in 1974, Investec is an Anglo-South African international banking and wealth management group that provides a diverse range of financial products and services to a global client base. Among the group’s banking services, Investec offers a full suite of bespoke solutions for private equity funds – enabling them to seize opportunities, deliver returns, and generate value. This includes capital call facilities, secondary fund leverage, NAV financing, and GP financing.

The Preqin team sat down with Michael Slane, Head of Origination for Investec’s Fund Solutions department, to discuss how the firm leverages Preqin to deliver data-driven private market investment solutions for clients. “We provide a range of fund finance solutions to GPs and the funds they manage across primary and secondary markets, as well as the full spectrum of asset classes,” Slane told us. “Private markets reward speed and judgment. Our mission is to pair both: flexible capital and world-class insight, helping the industry’s leading managers create durable value for their investors”.

The challenge:

Investec sees the rapid expansion of private markets as an opportunity to empower clients with alternative revenue streams, mid-market financing, and enhanced diversification. To meet this growth in scale and complexity, Investec needs quick access to accurate fund manager data to effectively map the market, conduct high-level due diligence, and monitor trends.

Investec requires hard-to-obtain information on specific buyers – like GP stakes, AUM, investor composition, flagship funds (with vintage, status, percentage of called capital, and dry powder), current and upcoming funds, investment criteria (minimum and maximum ticket size, industries, geographies), and asset-level data.

The solution:

Preqin Pro supports Investec with accurate, up-to-date data on fund managers to help the firm map the market, evaluate prospective funds, and make more informed decisions.

Preqin Insights+ equips Investec with actionable research across the full range of private market asset classes, helping teams analyze trends and identify opportunities.

The Data Feeds API enables Investec to connect systems to Preqin’s comprehensive database for seamless, on-demand access – saving time and streamlining workflows.

The result:

Preqin data has become a key tool for Investec, enabling the firm to optimize market mapping, due diligence, fund screening, and business development activities.

When asked about how the Fund Solutions team leverages Preqin Pro, Michael said “It’s really valuable for us to access that high-level view on GPs before we get into the more granular due diligence using the information the GP provides us directly”.

Preqin Pro enables Investec to sense check whether teams are speaking to firms that match their investment criteria – screening for fund managers that are at the right point in their lifecycle for Investec to pitch services – like NAV financing for older vintage funds or capital call financing for upcoming funds.

Without Preqin data, Michael said, “it would be difficult to know where to focus our time and energy among the many potential fund managers active in this space”.

Investec also subscribes to Preqin Insights+, with Michael describing the research reports as “helpful for keeping up with the ebbs and flows of private markets, enabling us to communicate strategy internally and steer our business to where we’re seeing growth”.

Investec supplements these research insights with bespoke data requests – enabling the group to brief internal teams on the current fundraising environment and secure underlying data on which funds have raised capital in the last quarter or year.

Why Investec chose Preqin

• Supports product innovation: Helps Investec develop fund finance solutions for secondaries and fund-of-funds.

• Tracks private markets easily: Provides early-stage insights on funds and managers.

• Streamlines workflows: Features like Fundraising Calendar and Excel/API integrations improve efficiency.

• Reliable customer support: Quick, helpful responses and custom data when needed.

About Investec

Founded in 1974 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Investec is an international banking and wealth management group that offers a diverse range of financial services. These include private banking, corporate and investment banking, and wealth management, with a focus on high-net-worth individuals and large corporations. With headquarters in both London, United Kingdom, and Sandton, South Africa, Investec is dual listed on the London Stock Exchange and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and a constituent of the FTSE 250.