Global Alternative Funds

Founder Natasha Nankivell leads the firm alongside Managing Directors Signe Brandt and Donna Willinge. Senior Adviser Peter Lyneham, a founding member of Goldman Sachs Infrastructure Partners, provides input on infrastructure manager selection. Day-to-day manager diligence and selection is handled by the core team, which collectively draws on experience from Carlyle, Oak Hill Advisors, Macquarie, and Goldman Sachs.

GAF leverages the senior team's institutional relationships built over careers at firms including Carlyle, Goldman Sachs, and Oak Hill Advisors. The firm conducts ongoing active research to filter and engage with top-tier global alternative managers, many of whom do not typically market to sub-institutional investors directly. All managers pitch directly to GAF investors, enabling ongoing relationship-building between the GP and the underlying Australian client base.

No. GAF does not manage discretionary funds or make direct investments. It acts as an aggregator: the firm structures Australian-domiciled vehicles that pool commitments from multiple HNW and family-office investors, presenting as a single institutional-sized ticket to global managers. Investors select which underlying strategies to participate in, and GAF handles execution, administration, and ongoing reporting.

Private equity, private credit, and infrastructure. The firm's website and the backgrounds of its senior team indicate exposure to buyout, special situations, distressed credit, and core infrastructure strategies. Senior Adviser Peter Lyneham's experience includes direct infrastructure investments in ports, gas distribution, and electricity networks across Europe.

GAF targets global managers, with a bias toward North American and European general partners — consistent with the career experience of its principals at firms like Goldman Sachs Infrastructure Partners in London and Oak Hill Advisors in New York. Australian managers are not explicitly excluded but are not the platform's distinguishing focus.

The firm emphasizes that it invests alongside its clients. Compensation is not publicly detailed, but GAF's model implies it earns a share of the management fee or a placement fee from the underlying GPs, or charges a wrapper fee on the Australian vehicle. The site does not publish a standardized fee schedule.

GAF's trust vehicles are structured to co-invest alongside the selected global manager's fund, rather than to compete with them. The platform allows investors to participate directly in the GP's flagship fund or in specific co-investment opportunities sourced by the GP. GAF itself does not originate or lead deals.