NB Private Equity Partners has appointed David MacLellan as an independent non-executive director with immediate effect and as Chairman Designate, with the handover of the chair set for 11 December 2026.
The listed private equity investment company announced the appointment on 23 September 2026. MacLellan joins the Nomination and Remuneration Committee and the Management Engagement Committee on taking up the directorship.
He succeeds William Maltby, who has chaired the company since September 2019. The search was led by Caroline Chan, who chairs the Nomination and Remuneration Committee.
MacLellan brings more than 35 years in private equity and fund management. He is Founding Partner and Chairman of RJD Partners, the mid-market private equity firm, and Non-Executive Chairman of Custodian Property Income REIT plc. He also holds board seats at The Lindsell Train Investment Trust plc, Aquila European Renewables plc and J and J Denholm Limited.
That spread of roles is the relevant qualification. NB Private Equity Partners is a listed vehicle that gives public market investors exposure to a portfolio of private companies, mostly through co-investments alongside private equity sponsors. Chairing it requires fluency in two quite different disciplines at once: the underwriting and valuation conventions of private equity, and the governance, discount management and shareholder communication demands of a London-listed closed-ended fund. MacLellan has done both, as a general partner at RJD Partners and as chairman of a listed REIT.
The timing places him in the chair at a point when the listed private equity sector has spent several years arguing with its own share prices. Trusts in the sector have traded at persistent discounts to net asset value, which has pushed boards toward buybacks, clearer distribution policies and more granular disclosure of how portfolio valuations are struck. Those are chair-level questions rather than manager-level ones, because they concern capital allocation by the vehicle itself rather than by the underlying portfolio.
The orderly transition is conventional for an investment trust and useful in practice. MacLellan has nearly three months on the board before taking the chair, which covers at least one full reporting cycle and gives him time to meet the manager, the brokers and the larger shareholders before he is the person they call.
Maltby's tenure of just over seven years is close to the point at which the UK corporate governance code begins to question a chair's independence, so the succession follows the normal rhythm rather than signalling a change of direction. For shareholders the question is whether the incoming chair takes a different view on discount management, which is the one lever a board of a listed private equity vehicle genuinely controls.
