Will The "New" Bit Only Be Executed Once When The Function Is First Executed But In The Next Call, It Will Already Exist

I used to write this:

Private Sub Example()
Static CachedPeople As List(Of MyApp.Person)
If CachedPeople Is Nothing Then

[code]....

But then wondered if I could reduce this to:

Private Sub Example()
Static CachedPeople As New List(Of MyApp.Person)
...rest of code...
End Sub

will the "New" bit only be executed once when the function is first executed but in the next call, it will already exist.