12 Best Investment Opportunities for Accredited Investors [2024]

When you become an accredited investor, you are in the elite group of people who have the financial means and regulatory clearance to make investments that others cannot. This can mean exclusive access to hedge funds, venture capital firms, certain investment funds, private equity funds, and more.

The Securities and Exchange Commission argues by becoming an accredited investor, you possess a level of sophistication capable of building a riskier investment portfolio than a non-accredited investor.

While not universally true, at the very least, you have demonstrated you have the financial resources to shoulder more risk should your investments unexpectedly fall in value.

Investment opportunities for accredited investors don’t need to be registered with financial authorities, meaning they come with fewer required disclosures and less transparency than registered securities available to non-accredited investors.

The line of thinking here is your qualification as a sophisticated investor means you understand financial risks, require less disclosure on unregistered securities, and believe investment opportunities for accredited investors offer suitable options for your investment funds.

Let’s review investments worth considering as an accredited investor and learn more about being one.

Best Accredited Investments—Top Picks

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List of Best Investment Opportunities for Accredited Investors

1. First National Realty Partners (Grocery-Anchored Commercial Real Estate)

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• Minimum Investment to Start: $50,000
• Type of Investor: Accredited Investors

First National Realty Partners (FNRP) is one of the fastest-growing vertically integrated CRE investment firms in the United States. It’s also focused on a very particular niche: grocery-anchored commercial real estate.

FNRP’s team leverages relationships with top-tier national-brand tenants—including Kroger, Walmart, and Whole Foods—to provide investors with access to institutional-quality CRE deals both on- and off-market. Unlike many of the other sites on this list, which are equity crowdfunding platforms, FNRP offers private placements that only an accredited investor can access.

They’ve helped thousands of investors increase their net worth and diversify their portfolios against market volatility through deals that yield steady cash flow.

FNRP also progresses from an entire investment lifecycle, from acquisition through disposition, 100% in-house. A large team of professionals filters through thousands of deals to choose a handful they believe will outperform their peers.

Unlike a traditional real estate investment trust (REIT) or fund, you have the ability to pick the deals that best align with your investment needs, so you can use FNRP’s various offerings to build your own portfolio.

This relative exclusivity does, however, come with a high minimum investment of $50,000. Sign up to learn more about the opportunity and determine whether it makes sense for your investment goals.

Read more in our First National Realty Partners review.

Related: 7 Best Banks for Real Estate Investors + Landlords

2. YieldStreet (Financial Securities in Real Estate, Art Finance & More)

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• Minimum Investment to Start: $2,500
• Type of Investor: All Investors

Alternative investments—basically, any asset that falls outside of stocks, bonds or cash—have become increasingly popular as fintech services open up previously closed markets to the individual retail investor. These opportunities have democratized numerous markets and unlocked previously inaccessible cash flows to pad your income.

Yieldstreet is one such platform, providing access to income-generating assets across several asset classes.

Yieldstreet is an alternative investment platform that provides you with income-generating opportunities. These investment options come backed by collateral, typically have low stock market correlation, and span various asset classes. Such asset classes include:

• Art finance
• Real estate
• Commercial finance
• Legal finance
• And more

Yieldstreet, which has been in business since 2015, has returned more than $600 million to its investors since its founding.

Historically, annual returns range anywhere from 3% to 18%, depending on the goal-based strategy. Yieldstreet offers predefined payment schedules (e.g., monthly or quarterly payments), and they may pay principal and interest upon the occurrence of certain events, such as settlement within a legal finance investment.

The durations of investment opportunities range from three months to seven years. Investment minimums start as low as $2,500, but can go well into five digits.

Yieldstreet technically is open to all investors, as non-accredited and accredited investors alike can participate in the Yieldstreet Prism Fund. However, you must be an accredited investor to participate in all other Yieldstreet offerings.

Learn more, and consider accessing these passive income investments, by opening an account today.

Related: 15 Best High-Yield Investments [Safe Options Right Now]

3. EquityMultiple (Individual Commercial Real Estate Properties)

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• Minimum Investment to Start: $5,000
• Type of Investor: Accredited Investors Only

Some real estate crowdfunding platforms only allow you to invest in property portfolios. However, some platforms, such as EquityMultiple, also allow you to invest in individual properties—in this case, commercial real estate (CRE).

EquityMultiple carries a minimum $5,000 initial investment and comes with a limitation on the type of investors who can participate: accredited investors. However, those investors have access to individual commercial real estate deals, funds, and even diversified short-term notes.

Namely, EquityMultiple only allows its individual commercial real estate projects to receive investments from accredited investors.

For those interested in learning more about EquityMultiple, consider signing up for an account and going through their qualification process.

Related: 33 Best Passive Income Ideas [Income Investments to Consider]

4. Percent (Private Credit Investments)

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• Minimum Investment to Start: $500
• Type of Investor: Accredited Investors Only

Percent is an investment platform designed for accredited investors who are interested in accessing private credit (non-bank lending).

You can diversify your portfolio with investments such as …

• small business lending in Latin America
• U.S. litigation finance
• Canadian residential mortgages
• merchant cash advances

Percent has built a way for retail accredited investors to access a wide range of private credit opportunities with a clear view into their performance through its innovative tools and comprehensive market data. That allows investors to make better-informed decisions, source and compare opportunities, and monitor performance with ease.

This platform also provides access to an alternative investment that’s a little more liquid than other alts, with some debt investments only lasting nine months, with liquidity available after the very first month in some cases.

The service targets annualized returns on unsecured notes between 12% to 18% on average and up to 20%. And while investment minimums vary, many Percent opportunities require only $500 to invest.

If you’re interested, visit Percent’s site to learn more or open an account.

 

5. AcreTrader

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• Minimum Investment to Start: $10,000
• Type of Real Estate Investment: Farmland
• Type of Investor: Accredited Investors Only

AcreTrader operates a crowdfunding real estate investing platform available to accredited investors with at least $10,000 to invest over three years or more.

AcreTrader is slightly different than other crowdfunding platforms because of its property focus: Specifically, it allows an accredited investor to buy not commercial or residential real estate, but farmland.

Investors can make money in two ways: annual rent payments from farmers, and land value appreciation over time. The former is typically sent out once a year, in December, while the latter is realized and paid out when AcreTrader sells the property and the investment vehicle is dissolved.

The platform has a limited number of new offerings to choose from. However, potential investigators should note that AcreTrader has a rigorous underwriting and due diligence process for properties offered on the platform.

You can invest through self-directed IRA accounts (SDIRAs) or a taxable brokerage account.

Investors can visit AcreTrader to learn more about the platform, view both current and past offerings, and sign up for the service.

 

6. CrowdStreet (Commercial Real Estate)

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• Minimum Investment to Start: $25,000
• Type of Investor: Accredited Investors Only

CrowdStreet is a real estate investment platform available exclusively to accredited investors looking to invest in commercial real estate for long periods.

The illiquid investments have performed well, but they require you to commit money for a few years, making you leave your money invested in these investments.

Further, CrowdStreet comes with a high minimum investment of $25,000, which shouldn’t come as a significant surprise. The platform caters to accredited investors, whereas platforms that allow non-accredited investors have low minimum investment requirements.

Depending on the type of project chosen, you might be receiving a return immediately through quarterly dividends on the commercial rental properties. You might also choose a project that takes a few years to provide you with money.

Editor’s note: Bloomberg has recently reported that investment funds in CrowdStreet allegedly have gone missing. According to court papers, millions of dollars ended up in accounts owned by Nightingale Properties, which CrowdStreet partnered with on the affected real estate transactions. CrowdStreet alerted regulators and brought in an independent manager to determine how the funds went missing. We are monitoring this developing story and may update our recommendations depending on the outcome.

Related: 11 Best Non-Stock Investments [Alternatives to the Stock Market]

7. Fundrise (Real Estate)

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• Minimum Investment to Start: $10
• Type of Investor: All Investors

Fundrise is a popular online real estate investing platform that allows you to diversify through its numerous funds. Each fund holds a number of properties and is designed to provide varying levels of risk and income.

Among its options:

• Starter and Basic accounts: Investors can now access Fundrise for as little as $10. People who open a Starter account ($10-plus minimum investment) or Basic account ($1,000-plus) have their money automatically invested in the Flagship Real Estate Fund, which seeks a balanced objective of income and growth.
• Core, Advanced, and Premium accounts: Core ($5,000-plus), Advanced ($10,000-plus), and Premium ($100,000-plus) accounts all have access to more specialized strategies. The four primary funds, from low risk/income to high risk/income, are Fixed Income, Core Plus, Value Add and Opportunistic. These accounts also have varying amounts of access to Fundrise’s “eREITs.” Also, Advanced and Premium accounts may invest in the Fundrise eFund, which is a tax-efficient partnership that can also hold non-REIT-eligible assets with “unique potential.”
• Fundrise iPO: This “internet public offering” allows investors to buy a stake in Fundrise’s parent company, Rise Companies Corp.
• Innovation Fund: This fund does not invest in properties, but rather private high-growth technology companies. While the fund expects to focus primarily on late-stage companies, it can hold early- and late-stage private companies, as well as some public equities. (Fundrise would likely invest in these publicly traded companies prior to their IPO, or initial public offering.)

You do not need to be an accredited investor to invest in Fundrise, but several of its funds are closed to non-accredited investors.

Fundrise does share one thing in common with traditional commercial real estate investing, however: It can be highly illiquid. Fundrise itself states that “the shares you own are intended to be held long-term.” You can incur a penalty for selling any eREIT and eFund shares held for less than five years, for instance. Also, you can’t pick and choose what you sell—Fundrise’s “first in first out” system means that when you liquidate, the first shares sold will be those you’ve held the longest.

Even then, commercial real estate remains one of the best alternative investments you can own, and Fundrise helps people easily reap its rewards. Like with owning shares of publicly held real estate, private CRE price returns will often lag a major index like the S&P 500. But the passive income from real estate investing is nice: Since 2017, Fundrise’s average annual income return of 5.29% dwarfs that of both public real estate investment trusts (REITs, 4.1%) and the S&P 500 (2.0%). That includes a 1.5% total return (price plus dividends) in 2022 compared to double-digit losses for public REITs and the S&P 500.

Most of Fundrise’s real estate funds charge an annual 0.85% flat management fee. The Fundrise Innovation Fund, which provides access to venture capital-style investments, charges 1.85% annually.

Visit Fundrise to learn more about this alternative asset class or sign up today.

 

8. RealtyMogul

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• Minimum Investment to Start: $5,000
• Type of Real Estate Investment: Commercial and Residential Real Estate
• Type of Investor: All Investors

RealtyMogul is an online real estate crowdfunding marketplace for real estate investing, namely commercial real estate and private real estate assets. The company caters to individuals seeing institutional quality real estate investments.

The company offers two private REITs for non-accredited investors and private placements (private real estate investments between two or more parties) for accredited investors.

Suppose you wish to participate in private placement opportunities through RealtyMogul. In that case, you can choose to invest through fractional ownership in an individual property or group of properties.

Interested investors who’d like to participate in the real estate investment trust (REIT) opportunities can look at their two options:

• The Income REIT: Pays monthly dividends at a 6% – 8% annualized rate (net of annual management fee) and focuses on income-generating assets more than growth-oriented investments. This fund invests in commercial real estate investment options like office buildings and retail space and residential real estate investment options like multifamily properties.
• The Apartment Growth REIT: A more balanced approach between income and growth, this REIT offers the ability to earn passive income at a lower annualized rate than the monthly dividends from The Income REIT, but with an eye toward capital appreciation as well. This fund differs in the holdings held within the portfolio, opting instead to invest solely in residential apartment buildings.

RealtyMogul charges a 1% annual management fee for their Income REIT fund and a 1.25% annual management fee for their Apartment Growth REIT fund.

Learn more about RealtyMogul by visiting their site.

 

9. Venture Capital

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Venture capital is a form of financing made available through private equity funds and other investment firms to startups or other small companies seen as having long-term growth potential. Typically, venture capital funds tend to come from well-off investors or private firms but don’t always come as a financial investment. Some venture capitalists provide managerial or technical expertise instead of financial capital.

When a small firm believes it can grow substantially and quickly with the help of outside capital or expertise, it will consider venture capital as a means to expand rapidly. Venture investments carry considerable risk compared to a publicly-registered security trading on a regulated exchange in the financial sector. Venture funds are an investment vehicle that can provide access to several small funds at once.

10. Fine Art

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• Minimum Investment to Start: $1,000 (Masterworks)
• Type of Investor: All Investors

If you prefer to look at paintings over jewelry, collectible art may be an investment you should consider. When looking into building wealth, not all art investments are created equal. The art you invest in must come with certificates of authenticity. Additionally, fine art will most likely increase in value if a well-known artist creates the piece. This applies especially to an artist who has passed away and cannot release new pieces.

Buying famous artwork on your own carries a high price tag and comes fraught with risk for those without knowledge of the industry. To reduce your costs and risk, you may want to consider using Masterworks or a similar platform.

Masterworks allows you to purchase fractional shares of ownership of famous paintings. For example, you might have partial ownership of a painting done by Claude Monet. Masterworks’ expert art collectors specifically choose paintings they believe will have the highest appreciation rates and lowest risk. This is a wonderful option for people who want to invest in art, but don’t know how to find private buyers on their own, don’t have the funds to purchase these costly works of art, or aren’t sure how to store them properly.

The minimum investment to get started through Masterworks is $1,000. It should be noted that this type of asset is illiquid and can’t be sold as quickly as other appreciating assets. If you’re passionate about art and looking for a long-term investment, you may be able to capitalize on blue-chip paintings appreciating. Sign up to learn more.

 

11. Hedge Funds

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Hedge funds are actively managed investment vehicles with managers who employ various investing strategies. Often, this includes buying assets with borrowed money or margin, short selling stocks or other securities, trading non-liquid assets and taking opposing bets on a position as a hedge on risk.

In exchange for these exotic investment decisions intended to produce returns higher than the stock market, they tend to charge high fees. Such fee models include a percentage of assets under management and profits made during the year. One famous pricing model is called the “2 and 20 model”, where investors pay 2% of assets under management and 20% of all annual profits. To overcome these high costs, hedge funds need to produce market-beating returns regularly.

Accredited investors often place money with these risky alternative investments in an attempt to outperform the market or provide better returns than they expect through making their own investment decisions. Accessing a hedge fund requires a high minimum investment or net worth, often leading to only the wealthiest clients eligible to participate.

Related: Best Commission-Free Stock Trading Apps & Platforms

12. Fine Wine

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• Minimum Investment to Start: $1,000 (Vinovest)
• Type of Investor: All Investors

You don’t need to be a wine connoisseur to understand why fine wine can be a worthwhile investment. Its quality can improve over time. Supply and demand work in your favor, too, as a good vintage will slowly disappear over time to normal consumption. As a result, fine wines can deliver long-term, stable growth. It also does not correlate strongly with the economy, so it can act as a hedge against inflation and economic recessions.

Unfortunately, you can’t simply buy a bargain wine from the grocery store, stick it in your basement for a few years, and expect to reap an eventual profit. If you want to make money from wine, it needs to be of high quality, ideally rare, and stored in optimal conditions.

Unless you already have vast wine knowledge and a professional storage setup, I recommend using Vinovest. Vinovest ensures wine authenticity, stores it for you, and ships it to buyers when they’re ready to sell. Users of the platform can fund an account with a mere minimum of $1,000, select an investment style, and wait patiently as their account balances (hopefully) grow. If you decide you’d actually like to taste some of that rare wine yourself, Vinovest will ship it to you.

And if you prefer a spirit with a little more bite, Vinovest now allows users to invest in whiskey. You can buy entire casks of American Whiskey from the likes of Whistle Pig and Breckenridge, or Scotch from Macallan, Highland Park, and more. You’ll receive a sample bottle from your cask every year, and if you decide it’s too good to sell, they’ll bottle the rest for you. You can start investing in whiskey via Vinovest for as little as $300; just note that Vinovest’s whiskey investing currently only offers managed accounts, with similar terms and fees as Vinovest’s wine-based managed accounts.

Vinovest’s managed portfolios charge annual fees between 1.90% and 2.50%, depending on which investment tier you fall in. You can learn more or sign up at Vinovest, or dive deeper into this platform by reading our Vinovest review.

Related: Best Investments for Roth IRA Accounts [Target High-Growth]

What Is an Accredited Investor?

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Accredited investors include high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), banks, insurance companies, securities brokers, and trusts.

An accredited investor may trade securities that do not require registration with financial authorities, like the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Securities and Exchange Commission believes if you meet at least one of the accredited investor requirements (covered below), you don’t need the financial protection provided by regulatory disclosure filings many of their non-accredited counterparts might need to protect investors.

Many investment firms choose to offer securities directly to this investor class through a private fund or another investment vehicle. These opportunities for accredited investors typically come through private placements.

These types of financial arrangements entail potential risks not seen in traditional investments. Therefore, authorities want to ensure an accredited investor has the financial resources and sophistication to understand these risky ventures before proceeding.

Related: How to Know What Stocks to Buy [Picking Stocks for the Long-Term]

How Does the Securities and Exchange Commission Define an Accredited Investor?

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While the accredited investor definition recently changed—from one which usually meant high-net-worth/high-income individuals to now one which focuses on investor experience and knowledge—it typically skews more towards investors with financial resources and familiarity.

That said, the new amendments from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allow investors to qualify as accredited investors based on defined measures of professional knowledge, experience or certifications in place of the existing tests for income or net worth.

These tests for financial resources include having an aggregate net worth of over $1,000,000 and earning over $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with that person’s spouse over $300,000 in each of those years with a reasonable expectation of reaching the same income level in the current year.

Knowledgeable employees who work for certain private funds can also participate as accredited investors.

This article will explore how your net worth, income, employment, certification or status as a private business development company or organization with assets exceeding certain thresholds may become a factor when considering what types of investments you can buy.

Related: How to Get Rich Off Stocks [Steps to Invest in the Stock Market]

How Do You Become an Accredited Investor?

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To become an accredited investor, you must meet one of the following standards:

1. You have a net worth (or joint net worth) exceeding $1,000,000 (excluding your primary residence).
2. You are part of an association or trust with assets exceeding $5,000,000.
3. Your annual income has exceeded $200,000 in each of the previous two years, and you expect to make the same amount this year.
4. You must exceed $300,000 of joint income if you have a spouse.

Once you achieve these milestones, you have access to accredited investments through achieving accredited investor status. This allows you to invest in investment opportunities like:

• private placements
• online investment platforms catering to accredited investors
• venture capital
• hedge fund opportunities
• private equity
• real estate deals and certain real estate investments
• convertible investments

When considering alternative investments for accredited investors, it is essential to look at them through the lens of risk and return, which varies depending on your current financial situation. It would help if you also held other considerations like portfolio diversification and liquidity.

To help with this decision-making process, we’ve created the list of investment opportunities for accredited investors that might be right for you. Of note, traditional investments like stocks and bonds can still present great options for your financial portfolio.

Related Accredited Investor Questions

What can I invest in as an accredited investor?

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As an accredited investor, you can invest in­ everything a non-accredited investor can buy. Still, you also have access to unregistered securities like those purchased by hedge funds, venture capital firms, angel investors and more.

Many of the assets available to an accredited investor fall under Regulation D Offerings (or “Reg D” for short) under the Securities Act of 1933.

This provides several exemptions from the registration requirements, allowing companies to offer and sell their securities without registering them with the SEC.

As mentioned above, this can mean a variety of private placements and other investments:

• Asset-backed investments: Investments offered directly to investors secured by a firm’s assets. In the event of default, these investors would have a legal claim to the firm’s assets.
• Interval funds: While similar to mutual funds in that they pool investors’ money together to purchase a common basket of assets, these professionally managed funds don’t require a daily reporting of net asset value (NAV) and only allow designated periods (or intervals) to transact. The reasoning is that fund managers have more leeway when making investment decisions as they have more certainty they will have capital available to the investment company.
• Hedge funds: A hedge fund takes investor money and uses it to make non-traditional investments or use exotic investment vehicles to attempt beating the stock market. Qualified investors commit capital to a hedge fund and allow them to use various investment strategies for their money. Typically your income level needs to be elevated, or you need a high net worth to contribute money to a hedge fund.
• Private equity funds: Private equity funds invest in businesses and do not have this company publicly available to other investors. This differs from stocks that trade on an organized exchange, where millions of investors can buy and sell shares of stock. Private equity is a form of funding available from high net worth individuals and firms.

You can also consider investments like venture capital, angel investing, real estate deals and crowdfunding.

Related: Best Fundrise Alternatives [Accredited & Non-Accredited Apps]

Do accredited investors get higher returns?

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Not necessarily. While accredited investor status requires you to have more financial resources at your disposal, accredited investors do not automatically earn higher returns than non-accredited investors.

Depending on the type of investments available through a private fund or asset class, an accredited investor may earn higher returns stemming from an illiquidity premium.

This means an investor expects to earn higher returns than those available through conventional securities like stocks, mutual funds, or exchange-traded funds because they lose access to their cash until the investment matures.

Related: 10+ Best Stock Trading Apps for Beginners

Is it worth it to become an accredited investor?

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Becoming an accredited investor allows you to invest in more assets than the investing public. Several companies specifically establish special investment pools catering to accredited investors, as this entails less regulatory burden and hassle with registering securities with the appropriate regulatory authorities.

Becoming an accredited investor can provide you with more opportunities to invest your money. However, being an accredited investor does not necessarily mean having higher returns. In exchange for forking over your money to non-traditional assets, you should expect that your returns will outperform the market as a whole.

Often, becoming an accredited investor changes little for your investing concerns. You want to preserve your day-to-day lifestyle through asset preservation or grow your funds through wealth accumulation. Investing as an accredited investor does require you to participate in accredited investor-only deals. Choosing to invest in the real estate market, stocks, or other standard types of assets is prudent.

When deciding whether you should invest in accredited investor opportunities, you should balance the trade-off you make between higher-reward potential with the lack of reporting requirements or regulatory transparency.

What are the risks of investing through private placements?

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It must be said that private placements entail higher levels of risk and can quite often represent illiquid investments. As with other investments, you can lose some or all of your investment.

Specifically, nothing here should be interpreted to state or imply that past results are an indication of future performance nor should it be interpreted that FINRA, the SEC or any other securities regulator approves of any of these securities.

Additionally, when reviewing private placements from sponsors or companies offering them to accredited investors, they can provide no warranties expressed or implied as to accuracy, completeness, or results obtained from any information provided in their discussions or presentations.

Investing in private securities transactions bears risk, in part due to the following factors:

• there is no secondary market for the securities
• there is credit risk
• where there is collateral as security for the investment, its value may be impaired if it is sold.

The company should provide information to you through a document called the Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) that offers a more detailed explanation of expenses and risks associated with participating in the investment.

Interests in these deals are only offered to persons who qualify as Accredited Investors under the Securities Act, and a Qualified Purchaser as defined in Section 2(a)(51)(A) under the Company Act or an eligible employee of the management company.

Lastly, the presentations shown in this article do not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy Interests in any jurisdiction to any person to whom it is unlawful to make such offer or solicitation in such jurisdiction. There will not be any public market for the Interests.

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