Secondaries Investor’s Second Thoughts

This episode is sponsored by Partners Group, Lexington Partners and Davis Polk As private wealth capital continues to flow into evergreen structures, this dry powder is having an immediate impact on secondaries volume. While estimates on just how much evergreen capital is moving into the market vary, industry participants view it as a growing force within secondaries. In this episode, Secondaries Investor’s editor Madeleine Farman is joined by Partner’s Group’s Philip Hess, Lexington Partners’ Taylor Robinson and Davis Polk’s Christopher Healey to explore the relationship between evergreen funds targeting private wealth capital and secondaries. Getting granular, they discuss how firms invest these vehicles alongside blind-pool flagship funds; the growing role of evergreen capital in the GP-led market; what lessons recent volatility in credit evergreen vehicles may hold for managers operating on the secondaries side of the market; and much more. Philip Hess is head of business development, private equity secondaries, primaries and co-investment at Partners Group Taylor Robinson is a partner on the secondary team at Lexington Partners Christopher Healey is a partner, registered funds and asset management M&A, at Davis Polk Madeleine Farman is editor of Secondaries Investor

In a market shaped by slower exits and macro uncertainty, infrastructure secondaries is increasingly viewed as a defensive investment strategy as LPs seek stable cashflows and downside protection. Infrastructure secondaries saw approximately $9.5 billion of deployment in 2025, including around $5.5 billion across LP-led transactions, according to Evercore's 2025 Secondary Market Report. Among non-buyout strategies, only credit secondaries saw higher deployment volumes at roughly $20 billion last year. In this episode, Americas correspondent Hannah Zhang is joined by Wandy Hoh, head of secondaries and co-investments at Macquarie Asset Management, and Jeremy Duksin, co-head of the GP Solutions Group at Baird. The discussion explores the forces behind the rise of infrastructure secondaries, including LPs' growing demand for defensive assets, the expansion of GP-led transactions, and the favourable dry powder dynamics fuelling the market's continued growth.

How is market sentiment shaping secondaries fundraising and deal activity? In this episode of PEI Group’s Data Dive podcast, PEI’s senior content producer, Evie Rusman, is joined by Secondaries Investor editor Madeleine Farman and PEI head of special projects for private equity Louise Fordham to discuss the findings from the Secondaries Investor Global Market Survey 2026. The survey, conducted in partnership with Goodwin, polled LPs, GPs, secondaries buyers and the intermediary community about market trends, transaction processes, deployment issues, regulation and more. PEI’s new Data Dive miniseries digs into our proprietary data, surveys and rankings, as well as recent market data sets, to understand what investors and fund managers are thinking, where capital is moving and how private markets are evolving. Read the full coverage of the Secondaries Investor Global Market Survey 2026 here. Download a data pack of the findings discussed in the podcast episode here.

This episode is sponsored by Dawson Partners, StepStone Group and Davis Polk Ongoing uncertainty within private markets over the past year has helped fuel interest in credit secondaries. Institutions have turned to private credit looking for relatively stable returns. Furthermore, managers and LPs are turning to the secondaries market for liquidity as they look to manage their own portfolios. “Those have dovetailed together to create this tailwind behind private credit secondaries,” Davis Polk partner Sijia Cai said on the latest edition of Secondaries Investor’s Second Thoughts podcast. “It has the best of both worlds in that it's offering liquidity solution to people in a way that also mimics and has the stability and the yield and the returns of private credit.” In this episode, Secondaries Investor’s editor Madeleine Farman is joined by Dawson Partners’ Yann Robard, StepStone Group’s John Bohill and Davis Polk’s Sijia Cai. They explore how the private credit secondaries market has evolved, the fundamental differences as compared to private equity secondaries and what is driving the surge in GP-led credit secondary transactions. They also discuss pricing, investor appetite and what will define success for managers operating in this rapidly growing segment of the market.

Secondaries volumes to date in 2026 are ahead of what they were at the same period last year, driven by a lack of distributions, with investors taking advantage of strong prices. LPs have become even more sophisticated in the past few years. A factor that is aiding their sophistication is the rise of asset class-focused products, offering them the ability to bring portfolios to market that are met with the right cost of capital. New entrants are coming to the market in earnest. These players represented 16 percent of the $226 billion of deal volume seen last year, compared with just 7 percent of the $114 billion of volume in 2023, according to Evercore's year-end report. Alongside these developments, secondaries manager M&A continues. This year alone, EQT has agreed to buy Coller Capital for up to $3.7 billion, while KKR agreed to buy sports investing specialist Arctos Partners with plans for a secondaries build out as part of its vision for the future of the combined firms. Evergreen capital has also emerged as a secondaries market mainstay, according to Evercore's report. Permanent capital funds have raised $46 billion for secondaries to-date with near-term fundraising coming in at $25 billion. A quarter of secondaries buyers have an evergreen fund, with this proportion set to rise in future. In this episode, Nigel Dawn, global head of Evercore's private capital advisory group, discusses the capitalisation of the secondaries market over the longer term, and how this will change the way Evercore works with the buyside. He also dives into how secondaries market activity will take shape in 2026 at a time where private markets activity is expected to ramp up.

The European secondaries market saw a string of sizeable deals across the course of 2025, with expected growth continued both this year and beyond. European managers CapVest, Montagu, Norvestor and PAI Partners secured CV-on-CV transactions over the course of last year, with CVC, Inflexion and TDR Capital also securing sizeable CVs, to name just a few. Belgian holding company Groupe Bruxelles Lambert and APG Asset Management also scored large LP-led portfolio deals. In this episode, editor Madeleine Farman is joined by Gabriel Möllerberg, managing director at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Lea Lazaric Calvert, a senior managing director at Evercore, and Nik Morandi, senior managing director at Blackstone Strategic Partners. The group discuss the rise of CV-on-CV transactions in Europe, the nuances around creating alignment given the prevalence of full fund carry waterfalls, the rise of first time sellers in the European secondaries market and expectations for European secondaries activity in 2026.

This episode is sponsored by Lexington Partners, LGT Capital Partners and Davis Polk In 2024, GP-led deals hit a record of $71 billion in transaction volume, accounting for 44 percent of the total secondaries market volume of $160 billion, according to Evercore’s FY 2024 Secondary Market Review. This is significant and marks the increasing popularity of continuation vehicles as an exit route. In this episode, Secondaries Investor senior editor Adam Le is joined by Lexington Partners’ Jeffrey Bloom, LGT Capital Partners’ Brooke Zhou and Davis Polk’s Leor Landa. The trio explore how GP-led transactions have rapidly grown into a mainstream liquidity and portfolio-management tool, against a backdrop of constrained exit markets, rising LP demand for liquidity and increasing GP comfort with continuation vehicles. They also examine market dynamics across deal sizes, noting the challenges of scaling mega single-asset vehicles and the significant untapped opportunity in the mid-market, where many GPs are still early in their GP-led journeys. Brooke Zhou is a partner at LGT Capital Partners in Hong Kong, an investment committee member, and is responsible for origination, due diligence, execution and monitoring of Asian primary and secondary investments Jeffrey Bloom is a partner on the secondaries team at Lexington Partners focused on the origination, evaluation and execution of continuation vehicle transactions Leor Landa is a partner and head of investment management at Davis Polk Adam Le is senior editor, EMEA, Private Equity Group, at PEI Group

GP stake secondaries transactions are steadily gaining traction as investors seek exposure to leading private equity firms. Though still in their early stages, these deals are often described as offering some of the most attractive risk-return profiles in today’s volatile market. In this episode, Jon Costello, founder of Devon Park Advisors, and Christopher Zook, founder and chief investment officer of CAZ Investments, join Americas correspondent Hannah Zhang in a discussion on the forces driving the rise of GP stake secondaries. With approximately $10 billion in assets, CAZ Investments has committed a large portion of its capital – about $5 billion – to GP stakes opportunities, Secondaries Investor reported in June. The firm deployed $700 million in GP stake secondaries alone in 2024, including a single transaction valued at over $500 million. Costello, who is tracking the GP stakes market closely, said GP stakes secondaries have the potential to achieve the same growth curve as has recently been seen in private credit secondaries if the market is able to pair the right structures with the right cost of capital. Zook added: "Wall Street folks are really smart, and they're going to figure out a way to dice and slice cashflows and all kinds of creative ways to be able to satisfy different demands that investors have. GP Stakes will be nothing different. It's already happening a little bit. I think it's just going to accelerate."

This episode is sponsored by Lexington Partners, Proskauer and StepStone Group The secondaries market is benefitting from private markets' push into the private wealth space, with managers either launching secondaries-focused vehicles or secondaries making up a meaningful component of many evergreen funds. Evergreen funds raised $16 billion in the first half of 2025 alone, 60 percent of which is dedicated to secondaries capital, according to estimates from Campbell Lutyens included in its H1 Secondary Market Overview Report. In this episode, editor Madeleine Farman is joined by Lexington Partners' Taylor Robinson and StepStone Group's Brian Borton, both of whose organisations run evergreen vehicles deploying into the secondaries market. Proskauer’s head of its registered fund group John Mahon also joins the conversation. In the wide-ranging conversation, Mahon, Borton and Robinson discuss appropriate ways to structure these vehicles, where to invest evergreen capital, regulatory updates, the long-term trajectory for these vehicles, and how they may impact the secondaries market.

This episode first appeared on The Infrastructure Investor Podcast In this special crossover episode from our affiliate title, Infrastructure Investor editor-in-chief Bruno Alves sits down with Madeleine Farman, editor of Secondaries Investor, as well as Infrastructure Investor Americas editor Zak Bentley, to talk about the infrastructure secondaries market. The discussion tracks the evolution of the burgeoning infrastructure secondaries market, the asset class’s best-in-class pricing compared to other private asset classes, how LP-led deals rule by volume but GP-led transactions end up being the most sizeable, the outsized role of continuation funds, the promise of the nascent buyer-led secondaries opportunity, and much more.

This episode is sponsored by Pomona Capital and Proskauer While the Trump administration's tariff announcements and the subsequent unfurling of uncertainty globally does create some headaches, it also creates a tailwind for the LP-led secondaries market. "What the market has trouble adjusting to is uncertainty. And what happens in times of uncertainty, like the times we're dealing in now, is that [M&A and IPO] transactions tend to pull away," Michael Granoff, founder and chief executive of Pomona Capital, said in the latest edition of Secondaries Investor's Second Thoughts podcast. "That uncertainty does tend to push more sellers into the secondary market... And so, in a funny way, it's not that we're uncorrelated to the world – we are – but on the other side of things, all of those things that keep us up at night that we're talking about actually create more opportunity for a buyer in the secondaries market." While market participants continued to put their heads down and get deals done that were far along when the tariff announcements occurred, secondaries professionals are still working to digest second- and third-order impacts, Galen Lewis, a partner in Proskauer's private funds group, explained. "Normally, distress of some sort is something that creates additional volume in the secondaries market." In this far-reaching discussion, Granoff and Lewis discuss a variety of issues affecting the LP-led market and the drivers of underlying deal volume, including the regulatory developments that may spur or hinder LP-led portfolio sales in the coming year, the rise of '40 Act capital, as well as new entrants.

As volatility pushes real estate investors to look for liquidity, secondaries can provide some attractive solutions. Now, StepStone Group has a record-setting fund in its arsenal to seize the opportunities. StepStone now manages the largest dedicated real estate secondaries vehicle raised to date having closed StepStone Real Estate Partners V on $3.77 billion in commitments last month. An additional $730 million from separately managed accounts brings the total haul to $4.5 billion. In this episode, Jeffrey Giller, head of real estate at StepStone, speaks to reporter Silas Sloan on how the fundraise came together, what the firm is looking for in a deal and where the real estate secondaries market goes from here. “The secondaries market in private equity has been such an important tool for liquidity for so many years,” Giller says. “It hasn't yet happened in real estate, but it inevitably will.”

Private credit secondaries has the potential to surpass private equity in deal volume over the longer term as more secondaries investors pursue yield and diversification amid market volatility. Over the past year, several billion-dollar-plus deals have emerged in the credit secondaries space, including Coller Capital's recent acquisition of a $1.6 billion portfolio from American National and TPG Angelo Gordon's $1.5 billion continuation fund. Firms like Coller, Pantheon, Apollo Global Management and Ares Management have also launched dedicated credit secondaries strategies. In this episode, Michael Schad, head of secondaries at Coller Capital, and Gerald Cooper, global co-head of secondaries advisory at Campbell Lutyens, speak with Americas Correspondent Hannah Zhang about the evolution of the private credit secondaries market and where the next opportunities may emerge. "Most of the asset managers are sitting on tens of billions of NAV. So it lends itself to a secondary opportunity that is inevitably going to continue to grow and be of scale," Cooper said in the podcast. "I think as we look five to 10 years down the road, we are hopeful that we are going to see more specialised pockets of capital come into the space."

Within private markets asset classes, there is certainly further room for improvement when it comes to diversity of talent – and one secondaries professional is taking matters into his own hands. Diversity in Secondaries Initiative (DISI) is a non-profit organisation focused on creating a more collective environment within the secondaries market for people of colour. Primarily, it seeks to find more opportunities to mentor, train and ultimately fill junior-level roles in the market with students that are in undergraduate programmes. In this episode, Peter Wright – a director advising on NAV lending and GP financing at Hark Capital, Secondaries Investor Next Gen leader alumni and founder of DISI – speaks with editor Madeleine Farman about the the driving purpose behind the non-profit organisation. "There's a lot of wealth to be created within our families, within our communities," Wright explained. "It's important for us all to make sure that we are acknowledging the ladders that have been let down for us to climb up, while also making sure we're turning back around and lowering those ladders for the next generation to come up forward." In this discussion, Wright also discusses his own personal motivations for starting the organisation, DISI’s key achievements to date, and constructive feedback for the secondaries market when it comes to hiring a diverse range of talent.

Delights and gripes relating to the continuation fund market were shared at PEI Group's NEXUS 2025 conference. A critical question was raised: do LPs need to take a more proactive approach to secondaries? In one of the panels, Jeremy Coller, founder of Coller Capital, encouraged LPs to do just that – proactively manage their exposure as more GPs mull CVs for assets they want to hold longer regardless of their 'limited' status. For LPs like the New York City Retirement Systems, however, the preferred status quo option when faced with a CV opportunity is to "do nothing", according to Eneasz Kądziela, deputy chief investment officer and head of private equity. In this episode, Secondaries Investor editor Madeleine Farman, senior editor Adam Le and Americas correspondent Hannah Zhang discuss their top secondaries takeaways from NEXUS, particularly the top concerns for LPs on both the sell-side and the buy-side of the secondaries market.

This episode is sponsored by Evercore, Davis Polk and Dawson Partners The secondaries market sits at a crossroads. Never before have LPs been presented with such an array of different liquidity offerings to back. There are specialised secondaries funds focusing on healthcare, on impact investing, on real assets in Asia or on acquiring direct minority equity stakes in companies in India. There are funds focusing on writing large cheques to multi-billion-dollar single-asset continuation funds; and there are funds focusing on making late primary commitments to buyout funds that are still in their fundraising mode. In short, if you’re an LP looking to back a secondaries fund, you’re spoiled for choice. In this special episode, we sit down with Nigel Dawn, global head of Evercore's Private Capital Advisory group; Leor Landa, head of the investment management practice at Davis Polk; and Yann Robard, managing partner at Dawson Partners. We discuss why the performance of continuation funds is key to the further growth and branching out of this part of the market, and why the market is undergoing the fastest pace of innovation it has ever seen.

How does your compensation this year compare with that of your peers? In this episode, Secondaries Investor editor Madeleine Farman sits down with Kylie Hart, co-founder and Partner at global executive search firm Norgay Partners. From her vantage point as an expert in private equity secondaries recruitment, Hart gives an overview of market compensation on both the buy-side and the sell-side following a record year for secondaries activity in 2024. The pair also discuss the differences in pay between secondaries and private equity strategies, the outlook for people moves following a flurry of activity to kickstart the year, appetite from private markets firms to launch secondaries strategies, how to approach career growth through mid-level and senior-level ranks, and much more.

The secondaries market saw another record year for deal volume, with advisory reports pinning the overall figures somewhere between $152 billion and $165 billion. In this episode, Secondaries Investor editor Madeleine Farman, senior reporter Hannah Zhang and reporter Silas Sloan dig into advisory reports. They walk through key themes that emerged, including the rising impact of evergreen capital and its effects on deal activity to date, the increasing scale of GP-led deals, the increasing scale of the buyer universe, right through to predictions on LP-led and GP-led activity for the year ahead. Read more at Secondaries Investor: Single-asset deals skyrocketed in 2024 – Campbell Lutyens Secondaries volume hits record high of $160bn – Evercore LP-led pricing for credit secondaries reaches all-time high – Jefferies Majority of GPs plan to use secondaries market over coming two-year period – PJT Share of commitments for GP-led deals to grow in 2025 – Lazard

Australian superannuation fund Aware Super is heading towards its private markets allocation targets after a period of build-up and growth. The fund, which manages around $110 billion on behalf of nurses and teachers, launched its first office outside of Australia in 2023, putting boots on the ground in London. Damien Webb, the superfund’s deputy chief investment officer and head of international, sat down with PEI senior editor Adam Le. In a wide-ranging interview, the pair discuss how GP-leds are complementary with the skills Aware Super has built out around co-investment, Webb’s views on LP-led secondaries as its alternatives portfolio becomes more mature, and his views on pricing and discounts in the market. Le and Webb also discuss Aware Super’s views for further international expansion and whether the team has been making any private markets asset allocation shifts over time where opportunities arise.

The secondaries market is bullish that 2025 will be another record year for secondaries market activity. Regionally, North America is set to continue its dominance in dealmaking, Europe is expected to throw up interesting opportunities that offer portfolio diversification, and increasing manager sophistication could lead to more GP-led opportunities in APAC. In this episode, Secondaries Investor's Adam Le, Madeleine Farman and Silas Sloan discuss the secondaries market's volume expectations for the year ahead and delve into key topics making rounds in the market, from US president-elect Donald Trump, to the impact of evergreen funds on the market and APAC's hottest markets in the wake of uncertainty surrounding China.Read more: Trump looms large for North American secondaries in 2025 Why APAC secondaries will remain buoyed in 2025

It's common to peel back the onion on key events and trends seen across financial markets. As the secondaries market heads for what is predicted to be a record-setting year for volume, we decided to practice the phrase quite literally. Madeleine Farman, senior reporter and host of the Second Thoughts, and senior editor Adam Le are joined by Carlo Pirzio-Biroli, head of CVC Secondary Partners, and Ted Cardos, co-head of Kirkland & Ellis's European liquidity solutions team, with the group letting a basket of onions decide the talking points. Pirzio-Biroli and Cardos discuss key wins, disappointments and developments over the course of 2024 and what the next 12 months could bring for the secondaries market.

The opportunity set for the tail-end secondaries market has grown from $198 billion 10 years ago to $916 billion today, according to estimates from legacy specialist Hollyport Capital. In this episode, John Carter, managing partner and chief executive of Hollyport, and Etienne Deshormes, managing partner and CEO of private markets adviser Elm Capital, join senior reporter Madeleine Farman for a discussion on the topic. The three discuss the structural drivers of the tail-end secondaries market, how to approach due diligence in this part of the market, which institutions are more likely to sell a tail-end secondaries portfolio, whether new entrants will enter into this space, and the long-term outlook for this growing segment of the secondaries market.

The lack of human capital has become one of the biggest challenges in the secondaries industry – a situation that could change as the sector gains appeal among young professionals. In this episode of Secondaries Investor's Second Thoughts podcast, we're joined by three young achievers who made it on the NextGen Leaders of Secondaries: Class of 2024 list, which features the most impressive secondaries professionals aged under 36. This year, we saw the highest number of submissions in the ranking’s history with almost 400 nominations. Our guests include Sijia Cai, partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell; Sabrina Harliman, vice president at TPG; and Josef Menasche, co-head of secondaries advisory at Goldman Sachs. They discuss current talent trends and how they think the secondaries market will evolve in the future.

Second Thoughts host Madeleine Farman and America's correspondent Hannah Zhang sit down to discuss the latest volume, fundraising and performance data coming through on the secondaries market and talk through the spaces to watch as activity surges towards the end of the year.

Do you work collaboratively with potential partners to help shape a deal, or do you have a set notion of what type of transaction you want to be a part of from the outset? Is EQ as important to you as IQ? How big a role does ego play in preventing deals from being consummated? In part two of our discussion with AlpInvest Partners managing director Louis Choy, PJT Partners‘ European head of private capital solutions Johanna Lottmann and law firm Stephenson Harwood partner and head of private funds Sarah de Ste Croix, we examine these questions and more. Find out what separates GP-leds 1.0 from 2.0, how the market got to this point, and listen until the end to hear a few light-hearted anecdotes from participants. If you missed part one of the discussion, listen here.

A secondaries buyer, adviser and lawyer walk into a room. This isn't the start of a bad joke – it's the culmination of an idea Secondaries Investor had after moderating a panel at an alternatives conference with AlpInvest Partners managing director Louis Choy, PJT Partners' European head of private capital solutions Johanna Lottmann and law firm Stephenson Harwood partner and head of private funds Sarah de Ste Croix. Over drinks at a nearby pub, the idea was born to record a podcast providing a 360-degree view of the latest trends in the market, as seen by representatives of the three main constituent groups. In Part 1 of our group discussion, hosted by senior editor Adam Le, the trio share their thoughts on the legal, financial and commercial benefits of leading a deal. They discuss the ways secondaries participants are coming up with creative ways to name deal leads in transaction documents; why syndicate capital is just as important as lead buyer capital; and how this definition may evolve. To hear more of our episodes, head to secondariesinvestor.com/podcast or you can search and subscribe to the new Secondaries Investor's Second Thoughts dedicated channel wherever you like to listen.

While many private markets firms are working to leverage generative AI, secondaries investment firm Clipway has put the technology front and centre of its strategy. The London-headquartered firm counts secondaries veterans Ingmar Vallano, Vincent Gombault and Benoît Verbrugghe and others among its senior investment team. All worked at secondaries giant Ardian. Since its inception last year, Clipway says it has reviewed close to $54 billion of potential opportunities and has built up an exposure to close to 150 GPs, which is a combination of the firm’s primary and secondaries activities. It says its generative artificial intelligence and machine learning system TESS allows the firm to conduct analysis of portfolios of underlying companies' data. In this episode, senior reporter Madeleine Farman sits down with managing partner Ingmar Vallano to discuss the benefits Clipway sees in putting generative AI at the heart of its process, the opportunities it sees for investments and the benefits generative AI could bring to private markets. To hear more of our episodes, head to secondariesinvestor.com/podcast or you can search and subscribe to Secondaries Investor's Second Thoughts wherever you like to listen.

This episode first aired on September 5, 2024 The top 50 secondaries investors globally raised $473.8 billion in the five years to the end of 2023, according to this year’s SI 50. That’s a 9 percent increase on last year’s ranking, when $434.5 billion was recorded across a longer counting period of five-and-a-half years. Ardian took the top spot, raising $49.6 billion across the period, followed closely by Blackstone Strategic Partners, which raked in $49.5 billion. Lexington Partners, which holds the record for the largest secondaries fund ever raised, accumulated $36.7 billion in commitments, coming in at number three. Specialisation is driving much of this underlying growth – whether that be through asset class expansion, strategies focused down on LP-leds or GP-led deals, or picking a focus on a market segment with less secondary competition. Evergreen vehicles are also spurring on new avenues for secondaries capital raising. In this episode of Second Thoughts, senior reporter Madeleine Farman and Americas correspondent Hannah Zhang discuss how far these factors have driven growth in the SI 50 and how much room there is to grow further. See the full SI 50 ranking here

This episode first aired on September 23, 2024 and is sponsored by Kirkland & Ellis, LGT Capital Partners and TPG NewQuest The Asia-Pacific secondaries market is one of the most fascinating corners of the global secondaries landscape. This region typically never accounts for more than single-digit figures in terms of global deal volume share – yet some of the most innovative transactions have come out of the APAC market over the years. In this episode of our Decade of Secondaries Investing miniseries, we sit down with Brooke Zhou, partner at LGT Capital Partners; Michelle Cheh, partner at Kirkland & Ellis; and Darren Massara, managing partner at TPG NewQuest, to discuss what types of deals have happened over the last 10 years in the Asia-Pacific region. We explore Renminbi-to-US dollar restructurings and why these have taken a back seat in 2024; why valuations are a more complex issue when it comes to Asia-Pacific GPs than their global counterparts; the different drivers of dealflow in the various markets in APAC and what types of opportunities these are bringing about; and why the regulations affecting GP-led secondaries deals in the US and western Europe have had little impact on APAC secondaries transactions. For full coverage of our Decade of Secondaries Investing series, including all podcast episodes and an interactive timeline, click here.

This episode originally aired on July 8, 2024 and is sponsored by UBS Asset Management and Proskauer Rose The global secondaries market has grown from roughly $47 billion in 2014 to more than $100 billion today. In Europe, fragmentation has led to some significant regional differences. However, it is also clear that many of the trends and dynamics found in the European market are the same as in North America – indeed, some of these developments occurred there first. In the penultimate episode of the Decade of Secondaries Investing podcast miniseries, we sit down with Jochen Mende, an executive director responsible for secondaries transactions at UBS Asset Management, and Bruno Bertrand-Delfau, partner and co-head of secondaries transactions and liquidity solutions at Proskauer Rose. The pair discuss how the European secondaries market has developed over the past decade, how it compares with the North American market and what’s in store for GP-led and LP-led transactions globally. For full coverage of our Decade of Secondaries Investing series, including all podcast episodes and an interactive timeline, click here.

This episode first aired on June 3, 2024 The private equity industry has been pushing for more gender equality among GPs, LPs and intermediaries over the past decade, and the trend is now taking hold in the secondaries market, where diversity issues have historically received less attention. In recent years, women across secondaries have been advocating for empowerment movements and forming support groups, including the Women in Secondaries network launched by Coller Capital and Akin Gump in 2020, as well as the WINS initiative backed in 2021 by five industry professionals representing the buyside, advisory, lending and legal sectors. For those who have made it to senior roles, the priority is to retain, promote and elevate other women. In this eighth episode of the Decade of Secondaries Investing miniseries, Americas correspondent Hannah Zhang sits down with two women pioneers to discuss how the secondaries industry can promote gender equality. They are Francesca Paveri, senior managing director at investment bank Evercore, and Tori Buffery, senior director of secondaries at Nicola Wealth and senior adviser at Morningside Capital. For full coverage of our Decade of Secondaries Investing series, including all podcast episodes and an interactive timeline, click here.

This episode first aired on May 29, 2024 Specialised secondaries strategies are becoming an increasingly important part of the market. According to data complied by Secondaries Investor, 85 percent of the capital raised by secondaries funds in final closes last year was for private equity strategies; the remainder of this was for non-PE strategies, and the year before that more than one-third of capital raised was for non-PE strategies. There is also increasing specialisation within private equity secondaries, as firms including Lexington Partners, Strategic Partners, AlpInvest Partners and LGT Capital Partners carve out teams to focus on single-asset continuation funds. In episode seven of the Decade of Secondaries Investing miniseries, senior editor Adam Le sits down with Jeremy Coller, chief investment officer and managing partner at Coller Capital, and Yann Robard, managing partner at Dawson Partners, to discuss how far the asset class has come in terms of specialisation and cross-asset-class appeal. For full coverage of our Decade of Secondaries Investing series, including all podcast episodes and an interactive timeline, click here. Listen: "Everything you wanted to know about preferred equity"

This episode first aired on May 22, 2024 Post-global financial crisis, many institutional investors were forced sellers, offloading private markets exposure at hefty discounts. More than a decade on, these same institutional investors have become repeat sellers on the secondaries market, using the tool as a way to proactively manage their portfolios. How has LP sentiment toward the secondaries market changed, and what is the outlook for this mainstay of the sub-sector? In this sixth episode of the Decade of Secondaries Investing miniseries, Secondaries Investor senior reporter Madeleine Farman sits down with Jeffrey Keay, managing director at HarbourVest Partners, and Adrian Millan, partner at PJT Park Hill. Keay and Millan take a deep dive into LP portfolio management and look at how institutional investors are using secondaries as a tool to manage private markets exposure. We look into the evolution of programmatic secondaries sales and explore the drivers and dynamics behind why some institutional investors are repeat sellers of private markets exposure. For full coverage of our Decade of Secondaries Investing series, including all podcast episodes and an interactive timeline, click here Read: "Liquidity the primary use case for GPs looking to enter secondaries processes – PJT" Read: "Evercore: distressed sellers 1% of 2013 market volume"

This episode first aired on May 13, 2024 The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s recently passed rules relating to the GP-led secondaries market have put these deals squarely on LPs’ radars. “[These rules] raise the visibility of GP-led transactions to LPs and they signal how important and risky those transactions might be,” Igor Rozenblit – managing partner and founder of governance, risk and regulatory services provider Iron Road Partners and the former private equity expert in the Division of Enforcement of the SEC – told Secondaries Investor. “I wouldn't be surprised for LPs who have already focused on these transactions to focus on them even more… While all the other risks the LPs have always worried about are present, now you've got an additional regulatory risk as an LP that you have to worry about, and LPs are typically very concerned with their exposure to headline risk." In this fifth episode of the Decade of Secondaries Investing podcast miniseries, we sit down with Rozenblit and Isabel Dische, chair of Ropes & Gray’s alternative asset opportunities group, to discuss the secondaries aspects of the private fund advisers rules under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and Form PF rules. The pair discuss the evolution of the SEC’s focus on this small sub-asset class within the sprawling private markets landscape, what the regulator is looking out for in these transactions, and how GPs, buyers and advisers can navigate best practice as well as reputational risk that could come with these deals. For full coverage of our Decade of Secondaries Investing series, including all podcast episodes and an interactive timeline, click here. Read: "SEC votes through rules on GP-led secondaries reporting timeline" Read: "Rubber stamp speeds up market standardisation" Read: "The VSS case and the path toward best practice" Read: "Iron Road Partners: Analyst note on American Infrastructure Funds SEC charge"

This episode first aired on May 7, 2024 and is sponsored by Ares Management, Dawson Partners and Proskauer Rose The North American secondaries market remains the deepest and most active area for secondaries trading of all the global regions. Around $114 billion-worth of alternatives exposure changed hands last year and North America accounted for around two-thirds of global secondaries trading. In this fourth episode of the Decade of Secondaries Investing miniseries, we sit down with Eddie Keith, a partner and head of infrastructure secondaries in the Ares Secondaries Group; Chris Robinson, partner in the private funds group at Proskauer Rose and co-head of the firm’s secondary transactions and liquidity solutions practice; and Yann Robard, founder and managing partner at Dawson Partners, which recently rebranded from Whitehorse Liquidity Partners. The trio discuss how the North American secondaries market got where it is today, and what’s next for this crucial region. For full coverage of our Decade of Secondaries Investing series, including all podcast episodes and an interactive timeline, click here.

This episode first aired on April 29, 2024 Single-asset continuation funds have surged in popularity in recent years. While the technology isn't new, it took persistence from secondaries market advisers to show both private equity managers and buyers that vehicles associated with the moniker 'zombie funds' could be used to keep hold of star-performing assets. Last year, single-asset continuation fund vehicles took out the largest share of GP-led transactions, accounting for around 39 percent of the $48 billion of volume seen in this part of the market, according to a year-end report from Lazard. There was "some reluctance" from secondaries buyers when conversations around single-asset continuation fund transactions began, Harold Hope, global head of secondaries at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, told Secondaries Investor. "We traditionally bought portfolios. Sometimes they were concentrated portfolios, but they were always portfolios." Today, these vehicles allow Goldman Sachs "to mitigate some of the broader risk that we face when we buy a diversified portfolio," Hope said, adding that the team is "excited about the opportunities" globally. In this third episode of the Decade of Secondaries Investing podcast miniseries to celebrate the 10 years since Secondaries Investor launched, we sit down with Hope and Holcombe Green, global head of Lazard’s private capital advisory business. They discuss how continuation fund technology was developed over time to facilitate single-asset continuation funds, and how large this pocket of the market could become as more capital is allocated to the area. For full coverage of our Decade of Secondaries Investing series, including all podcast episodes and an interactive timeline, click here.

This episode first aired on April 22, 2024 What's in a name? The process of moving an asset or assets from an existing private markets fund into a separate structure has been happening for some time now – some say as early as 2006 and possibly even prior to that. The so-called 'continuation fund' market was worth around $40 billion last year, according to advisory estimates. Yet, this market was not always seen as a positive and constructive tool with which fund sponsors could deliver liquidity, via an option, while retaining their hold over prized assets. In the second episode of the Decade of Secondaries Investing miniseries to celebrate the 10 years since Secondaries Investor launched, we sit down with Nigel Dawn, head of private capital advisory at investment bank Evercore, and Verdun Perry, global head of Blackstone's Strategic Partners group, to discuss the evolution of the continuation fund market over the past decade and what's in store for how this tool will continue to be used. For full coverage of our Decade of Secondaries Investing series, including all podcast episodes and an interactive timeline, click here. See the PEI 300 here. Read "Single-asset CVs offer steadier returns than buyout funds – Evercore Read "How do continuation funds really perform?" Read "More LPs seek to back secondaries funds"

This episode originally aired on April 15, 2024 A decade ago, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, anxiety around unknowns was still rippling through financial markets, including within secondaries. Similarly, there was a great deal of concern around the Volcker Rule that came into effect in 2014, which essentially prohibited banks from investing in private equity with their own funds. In 2013, secondaries volume sat at around $28 billion. The following year, volume leapt to $42 billion. While regulation should not be overplayed, the Volcker Rule and Solvency II – a regulation affecting insurance companies and the percentage of risky assets they can hold on their balance sheets – played a big role in this increase. In 2014, "There was suddenly... a lot more publicity being given to what people had been doing," Katherine Ashton, partner at Debevoise & Plimpton, explained. "With the increased publicity, with the increased knowledge of the market, that fed on itself and led to outdoing some of the predictions [for the growth of the market] because the more people realised that there were willing buyers and sellers, the more it allowed the market to develop." Welcome to the Decade of Secondaries Investing miniseries, where we celebrate 10 years of Secondaries Investor with reflections on key trends that have shaped the market, as well as a glimpse into what likely lies ahead. In this first episode, we sit down with Ashton as well as Michael Granoff, chief executive and founder at Pomona Capital. Each give insight into how the Volcker Rule and other post-GFC legislative frameworks spurred secondaries sales. For full coverage of our Decade of Secondaries Investing series, including all podcast episodes and an interactive timeline, click here.

This episode originally aired on March 26, 2024 In this episode, Secondaries Investor's Madeleine Farman, Adam Le and Hannah Zhang cut through the headline figures in 2023's advisory reports to break down geographic trends and key themes in the market. Total deal volume sat somewhere in the region of $109 billion to $115 billion in 2023 with LP-led volume making up $56 billion to $66 billion. Farman, Le and Zhang delve into topics including APAC secondaries market activity, structured liquidity offerings such as NAV loans, preferred equity and GP commit financing, and the popularity of multi-asset continuation funds as managers seek to find ways to generate DPI for LPs.

This episode originally aired on January 2, 2024 In this episode, Ardian's co-head of secondaries and primaries Vladimir Colas makes a bold prediction for the secondaries market: the first private equity fundraise to breach the $30 billion mark will be a secondaries vehicle. LP portfolios being brought to market are only growing in size, and if they could, sellers would be offloading even larger portfolios. However, secondaries activity is still constrained by the amount of capital available to deploy into these transactions. Colas sat down with senior reporter Madeleine Farman to discuss how large the secondaries market could become in the near future, as well as how many new entrants Ardian expects to break into the secondaries market in 2024 and beyond.

This episode originally aired on November 1, 2023 Secondaries funds investing in private equity opportunities that held their final close between January and the end of September raised $67.69 billion – a 168 percent jump on the same period last year and 46 percent more than the previous record of $46.44 billion raised in Q1-Q3 2020. In this episode, senior reporter Madeleine Farman and senior editor Adam Le dig further into the numbers to discuss whether 2023 could be a record year for secondaries fundraising; whether the secondaries market will continue to grapple with an under-allocation issue; and whether coffers are beginning to fill versus the opportunities that are out there in the market.

This episode originally aired on September 1, 2023 In this episode, the spotlight is on our yearly ranking of the top secondaries firms globally. Blackstone Strategic Partners has topped this year's SI 50 ranking published by Secondaries Investor and Private Equity International, raising $51.3 billion across funds that closed between 1 January 2018 and 30 June 2023. Senior reporter Madeleine Farman speaks with global head Verdun Perry, discussing the state of the secondaries market, what Strategic Partners is looking for in opportunities currently, and some of the key moments across Perry's career.

This episode first aired June 30, 2023 Senior reporter Madeleine Farman and senior editor Adam Le discuss the key findings underpinning Secondaries Investor's Advisory Survey 2023 and Law Firm Survey 2023.

This episode first aired on April 26, 2023 Presenting the second instalment of Second Thoughts, a special series from Secondaries Investor that delves into the latest trends affecting the fastest-growing market in alternatives.

This episode first aired on February 8, 2023 Presenting the first instalment of Second Thoughts, a special series from Secondaries Investor that delves into the latest trends affecting the fastest-growing market in alternatives.

Secondaries Investor's Second Thoughts podcast focuses exclusively on private markets' burgeoning secondaries market, which is offering liquidity to its underlying illiquid asset classes. Hear analysis from Secondaries Investor's global team of journalists and interviews with the market's most influential players and rising stars discussing the dynamics shaping this ever-evolving area.