Question 1

How big is the private equity secondary market?

Accepted Answer

Secondary market volume reached $107.74 billion in the first half of 2026, up 5.4% on the $102.23 billion recorded in H1 2025. Private equity accounts for roughly 85% of that activity, with the balance in infrastructure, private credit, real estate and other alternatives. With buyers predicting a further $151.27 billion in the second half, the market is on track to approach $259 billion for the full year.

Question 2

What was secondary market volume in 2026?

Accepted Answer

First-half 2026 volume was $107.74 billion — a new H1 record. Survey respondents predict roughly $151.27 billion in the second half, which would put full-year 2026 near $259 billion. Because the second half of the year has historically seen larger transaction volumes, the full-year figure is predicted to be well above twice this H1 number.

Question 3

What was secondary market volume in 2025?

Accepted Answer

First-half 2025 volume was $102.23 billion, showing H1 2026 volume up 5.4% on a year-over-year basis.

Question 4

How has secondary market volume changed over time?

Accepted Answer

First-half volume has grown from about $18.6 billion in 2016 to $107.74 billion in 2026 — roughly a 5.8x increase over the decade. Growth has not been linear: volume fell sharply in H1 2020 during the COVID pandemic and again in H1 2023, amid higher interest rates, before recovering to successive records.

Question 5

Is the secondary market still growing?

Accepted Answer

Yes. H1 2026 was the largest first half on record at $107.74 billion, up 5.4% year-over-year, and buyers expect the second half to be larger still. The long-run trend remains firmly upward, driven in particular by the rise of GP-led transactions.

Question 6

How fast is the secondary market growing?

Accepted Answer

Full-year volume has compounded at 16.7% a year since 2004 and roughly 14% a year since 2014, a 25× rise from $8 billion to $203.76 billion. First-half volume is up 5.8× over the last decade (H1 2016 $18.6 billion → H1 2026 $107.74 billion). Growth has come in waves: down years in 2009, 2016, 2020 and 2022 were each followed by a new record within two years. The faster-growing segments are GP-led deals (8.1× since 2016), infrastructure (10×) and private credit (up 35% year-on-year).

Question 7

How does the secondary market compare with the primary private equity market?

Accepted Answer

It is still small relative to the stock of private assets. Bain counts roughly 32,000 unsold PE-backed companies worth $3.8 trillion, and distributions ran at just 14% of NAV in 2025 — below 15% for a fourth straight year, levels last seen in 2008–09. Against that, about $204 billion of secondary volume in 2025 represents a low-single-digit turnover of private-market NAV each year, which is why most participants expect the market to keep growing: Coller has forecast $500 billion of annual volume by 2030, and Preqin and William Blair both project about $250 billion for 2026.

Question 8

What is the difference between LP-led and GP-led secondaries?

Accepted Answer

An LP-led secondary involves an existing investor selling one or more fund interests to another investor. A GP-led secondary is initiated by a fund's general partner and includes structures such as continuation vehicles, tender offers and fund restructurings. The report tracks the two separately because the shift toward GP-led deals is the single biggest structural change in the market.

Question 9

What percent of the secondary market is GP-led?

Accepted Answer

GP-led secondaries were 46.1% of total volume in H1 2026, up from 41.8% a year earlier. In dollar terms that is $49.65 billion of GP-led activity versus $58.09 billion of LP-led. Respondents expect the split to reach roughly 50/50 within three years.

Question 10

How much continuation vehicle and GP-led volume is there?

Accepted Answer

GP-led volume totalled $49.65 billion in H1 2026, up 16.2% year-over-year — far outpacing the LP-led side, which slipped 2.4%. Fund restructurings, including continuation vehicles, made up about 88% of GP-led deal types, with tender offers, purchases of directs and follow-on capital making up the remainder.

Question 11

How has the GP-led vs LP-led split changed over time?

Accepted Answer

GP-led secondaries have gone from a niche of roughly 15% of volume in 2013 to 46.1% today. This trend reflects how general partners now treat the secondary market as a core liquidity management tool rather than a last resort, and how secondaries buyers expect GP-led and LP-led volume to be about even within three years.

Question 12

What are the largest continuation vehicles ever done?

Accepted Answer

Vista Equity Partners' $5.6 billion continuation fund for Cloud Software Group (Citrix/Tibco) in June 2025 is the largest reported; New Mountain's $3.1 billion single-asset vehicle for Real Chemistry (April 2025) and Inflexion's £2.3 billion multi-asset vehicle (Europe's largest, May 2025) follow. In private credit, Crescent Capital's $3.2 billion vehicle (January 2026, led by Pantheon) and TPG Twin Brook's $3 billion (August 2025, led by Coller) set records, and Cerberus's $2.3 billion SubCom vehicle (April 2026, CVC) is the largest in digital infrastructure. Nordic Capital's €2.5 billion Fund VII restructuring in 2018, led by Coller, is generally regarded as the deal that made continuation vehicles mainstream.

Question 13

Single-asset or multi-asset continuation vehicles — which is bigger?

Accepted Answer

Single-asset. Evercore counts $52 billion of single-asset continuation vehicles against $42 billion multi-asset in 2025, and single-asset deals were 53% of GP-led volume in H1 2026, up 88% year-on-year; Lazard puts the H1 2026 split at 54% single-asset, 30% multi-asset and 14% preferred equity and other structures. Single-asset deals concentrate risk in one company, so they are underwritten like a buyout: Setter's buyers target about 20.1% IRR and 2.0× on GP-led directs, against 17.0% and 1.6× on buyout fund interests.

Question 14

How are continuation vehicles priced?

Accepted Answer

Close to NAV, and sometimes above it. Setter's buyers reported paying an average 94.8% of NAV on GP-led deals in H1 2026, against 89.1% on LP-led fund sales — a gap of about six points that has held in every period since pricing was first tracked in 2023. Campbell Lutyens reports a 4.0% average GP-led discount in 2025 with 48% of deals at or above par; Lazard found 87% of single-asset deals in H1 2026 priced above 90% of NAV and 23% above par. The tighter pricing reflects that the buyer is choosing a specific asset and negotiating directly with the manager, with a fairness opinion and a competitive process behind the price.

Question 15

What governance rules apply to continuation funds?

Accepted Answer

Continuation vehicles are conflicted by design — the GP is on both sides — so process matters. ILPA's 2023 guidance asks for LPAC review with at least 10 business days' notice, a 30-day election window, no crystallisation of carry for rolling LPs, no increase in fees or carry, a competitive multi-bidder process and a fairness opinion; a June 2026 draft update adds independent price validation, anonymised bid summaries and a requirement that the GP show the vehicle beats the alternatives (sale, fund extension, NAV facility). The SEC's 2023 Private Fund Adviser Rules would have mandated fairness opinions for adviser-led secondaries, but the Fifth Circuit vacated them in June 2024; fairness opinions have nonetheless become standard practice.

Question 16

What do LPs actually sell?

Accepted Answer

Mostly buyout funds. LBO fund interests were about $46 billion, or 42.7% of all H1 2026 volume, with venture, growth, private credit, fund-of-funds, real estate and energy interests making up the rest. Buyers have been buying older funds: the volume-weighted average age of funds purchased rose from 5.5 years in H1 2020 to a peak of 7.0 years in H2 2025. Sellers increasingly bring whole programmes rather than single funds — Jefferies counted 27 LP portfolio sales above $1 billion in 2025 and 15 in H1 2026 alone.

Question 17

What are the largest LP portfolio sales on record?

Accepted Answer

CalPERS's $6 billion sale in 2022 (Jefferies advising; Lexington and CVC/Glendower among buyers) is generally cited as the largest; New York City's five pension systems closed a $5 billion-plus sale of 450 commitments across 125 funds in May 2025 (Evercore advising, Blackstone Strategic Partners buying); Kaiser Permanente sold about $5 billion in 2023 to Ardian, Blackstone and Apollo and shopped a further $3.5 billion in 2024; Norinchukin Bank sold a $5 billion largely unfunded portfolio in 2019. In 2025–26, Yale (up to $2.5 billion), Harvard (about $1 billion), CIC and GIC (about $1 billion each) and La Caisse ($1.5 billion, China-focused) have all run or launched sales.

Question 18

How does an LP portfolio sale work?

Accepted Answer

A seller (usually with an adviser) assembles a portfolio, prepares a data room and runs a competitive auction, typically over eight to twelve weeks. Large portfolios are often sold "mosaic" style — split among several buyers, each bidding on the funds they price best — which lifts the blended price. Bids are expressed as a percentage of NAV at a reference date, and the buyer assumes unfunded commitments and interim cash flows. Closing requires GP consent to the transfer; existing LPs may hold rights of first refusal. In H1 2026 only 12.2% of buyers saw more deals fall through than the period before, and when deals break the leading reason (72%) is simply the seller deciding not to sell, with ROFRs exercised in 13.9% of failures.

Question 19

What discount to NAV do secondaries trade at?

Accepted Answer

In H1 2026, across different alternatives strategies, LP-led fund interests changed hands at an average of 89.1% of net asset value, while GP-led deals priced stronger at about 94.8% of NAV.

Question 20

What returns do secondary buyers target?

Accepted Answer

Target returns vary sharply by strategy. Buyers underwrite venture secondaries to the highest returns (about 21.7% IRR / 2.15x) followed by GP-led directs (20.1% / 2.02x) and LBO (17.0% / 1.62x), with infrastructure (12.4% / 1.61x) and performing credit (12.0% / 1.37x) underwritten to the lowest returns. Target returns have continually sunk lower as price competition has compelled buyers to price more aggressively.

Question 21

How is secondary pricing measured?

Accepted Answer

As purchase price divided by the fund's reported NAV at a reference date (usually the most recent quarter-end), with the buyer also assuming the unfunded commitment. Because NAV moves between reference date and closing, distributions and capital calls in the interim are netted against the price. Deferred payment terms flatter the headline: Jefferies estimates deferrals lifted headline prices by about 400 basis points in 2024. Aggregate pricing is a market average and should not be applied to an individual fund interest, whose price depends on manager quality, fund age, sector and the level of unfunded commitments.

Question 22

What was secondary pricing in past downturns?

Accepted Answer

The 2008–09 crisis is the floor: Preqin's model pricing fell to about 51% of NAV for buyout and 53% for venture in March 2009. The 2020 pandemic froze deals rather than repricing them — H1 2020 volume fell to $20 billion and 60% of Setter's buyers saw more deals fall through. The 2022 rate shock cut LP pricing to about 81% of NAV (buyout 87%, venture 68%, per Jefferies) and volume by 29%.

Question 23

How are secondary deals paid for — cash or deferred?

Accepted Answer

Mostly cash. 73.6% of H1 2026 volume closed all-cash, 22.3% used a deferred payment (typically 12–24 months), and preferred equity and earn-outs were 1–3% each. Deferrals rise whenever bid-ask spreads widen — they reached 37.8% of volume in H1 2025 — and fall back when pricing is competitive; all-cash peaked above 90% in 2021. Campbell Lutyens found 64% of buyers used a deferral in 2025 with an average length of 10 months.

Question 24

Who are the biggest buyers in the secondary market?

Accepted Answer

Dedicated secondary funds dominate the buy-side, accounting for 93.7% of volume in H1 2026, with funds of funds a distant second at around 3%. Pensions, investment consultants and hedge fund buyers make up the small remainder.

Question 25

How concentrated is buying in the secondary market?

Accepted Answer

Very concentrated. The 35 largest buyers — each deploying $600 million or more in the first half — accounted for 81.8% of all volume, despite our buyer universe for this survey spanning well over 100 firms. Activity stayed concentrated at the top among the biggest, best-capitalised secondary funds despite an ever-widening field of participants.

Question 26

Who are the biggest LP-led secondary buyers?

Accepted Answer

The buyers of large LP portfolios are the firms with the biggest flagship funds. Ardian's ASF IX ($30 billion, January 2025, the largest secondaries fund ever raised) buys portfolios averaging about $2 billion each; Lexington Capital Partners X ($22.7 billion) is built around "partnership portfolios from large-scale investors"; Blackstone Strategic Partners bought the $5 billion-plus New York City pension portfolio in 2025; Coller, HarbourVest, AlpInvest and Hamilton Lane round out the group. Mid-market and tail-end LP portfolios are bought by specialists such as Hollyport, Future Standard (Portfolio Advisors), Committed Advisors and Kline Hill.

Question 27

Who are the biggest GP-led and continuation vehicle buyers?

Accepted Answer

ICG Strategic Equity raised the largest fund dedicated to GP-led deals — Strategic Equity V at $11 billion (March 2025) — and invests only in single-asset continuation vehicles. Other dedicated GP-led pools include Blackstone Strategic Partners GP Solutions ($2.7bn), Morgan Stanley's Ashbridge II ($2.5bn, single-asset), Pantheon's PSOF II ($1.1bn) and Ardian's new single-asset CV strategy launched in November 2025, while Lexington is raising a $2 billion-plus continuation-fund vehicle alongside its next flagship. HarbourVest, Goldman Sachs Vintage, AlpInvest, Coller, StepStone and Partners Group all run their flagships with a roughly even LP-led/GP-led split. Only about 10% of buyers can write a $300 million-plus cheque for a single-asset deal, which is why large CVs are syndicated among several leads.

Question 28

What are the largest secondary funds ever raised?

Accepted Answer

Ardian ASF IX ($30bn, 2025); Lexington Capital Partners X ($22.7bn, 2024); Blackstone Strategic Partners IX ($22.2bn, 2023), with Strategic Partners X targeting $22.5bn and past $14bn by July 2026; Carlyle AlpInvest ASP VIII ($15bn fund, $20bn programme, 2025); HarbourVest Dover Street XI ($15.1bn, $18.5bn with overflow, 2024), with Dover Street XII targeting $20bn; Goldman Sachs Vintage IX ($14.2bn, 2023); Coller International Partners IX ($12.5bn fund, $17bn platform, 2026); ICG Strategic Equity V ($11bn, 2025); Partners Group's eighth programme (over $9bn, 2026). Lexington is reported to be seeking at least $25 billion for LCP XI, which would set a new record.

Question 29

How much dry powder do secondary buyers have?

Accepted Answer

Roughly one year of volume. Evercore counted $215 billion of available capital at the end of 2025 and $194 billion at mid-2026, a capital overhang of about 1.0× annual volume — historically low, and the reason pricing has firmed. Jefferies counts more broadly: $327 billion of dedicated secondary capital and about $477 billion including non-dedicated LP capital and leverage. Setter's buyer survey points the same way: 32.4% of buyers intend to broaden into new strategies in the next twelve months, the highest reading since 2018, and only 10% felt competition for deals was higher than a year earlier.

Question 30

Where are secondary buyers based?

Accepted Answer

Overwhelmingly in North America and Europe. In H1 2026, 72.9% of the buyers in Setter's survey were headquartered in North America, 25.8% in Europe and about 1% in Asia — proportions that have barely moved in a decade (57/40/3 in 2014).

Question 31

Who sells in the secondary market?

Accepted Answer

Selling in H1 2026 was led by general partners (27.5% of H1 volume) and pensions (25.1% of H1 volume), followed by sovereign wealth funds and funds of funds / secondary funds (about 13% each), endowments and charities (11%), family offices (5%), insurers (3%) and banks (2.4%).

Question 32

Why do LPs sell fund stakes on the secondary market?

Accepted Answer

Investors typically sell to generate liquidity, rebalance or reduce exposure, exit non-core manager relationships, or manage over-commitment.

Question 33

Who is expected to sell the most in 2026?

Accepted Answer

Buyers expect pensions to be the largest source of supply over the next six months at about 36.1% of projected H2 volume, ahead of general partners (24%), funds of funds / secondary funds (14%) and sovereign wealth funds (11%).

Question 34

Are banks and insurers selling private equity stakes?

Accepted Answer

Both banks and insurers are expected to be more active sellers in H2 2026. Bank sellers made up only 2.4% of selling in H1 2026 but are forecast to rise to about 8% of H2 volume as balance-sheet and regulatory pressures push portfolios to market. Insurers were around 3% of current selling.

Question 35

Are pensions, sovereign funds and endowments selling more?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Pensions are expected to be the largest sellers in H2 2026 at 36% of projected volume, according to Setter's buyers. Sovereign wealth funds were 13% of H1 2026 selling, matching the highest share in the survey's history, and Evercore puts them at 21% of LP-led sell-side volume in H1 2026, up from 12% in 2025; GIC and CIC have each run roughly $1 billion sales. Endowments and charities were 11% of selling, above their 7% long-run average, consistent with the widely reported 2025 sales by Yale and Harvard.

Question 36

Where are sellers based?

Accepted Answer

North American sellers supplied 59.7% of H1 2026 volume, Western Europe 24.7% and Asia-Pacific 13.6% — the highest Asian share since 2019, driven by sovereign funds, Japanese banks and Chinese-exposure sales. La Caisse's $1.5 billion China-focused sale and CIC's roughly $1 billion US portfolio are the recent examples.

Question 37

What is the outlook for the secondary market in 2026?

Accepted Answer

Buyers predict about $151.27 billion of volume in the second half of 2026 — 25.8% above the $120.24 billion they forecast for the second half a year ago — split roughly $81.55 billion LP-led and $69.71 billion GP-led. About 31.3% of respondents expect H2 to be higher than H1, with almost none expecting it to be lower.

Question 38

How much secondary volume is predicted next?

Accepted Answer

The survey points to roughly $151.27 billion in H2 2026, which would bring full-year volume close to $259 billion. Read that as an optimistic case rather than a base case: in twelve of the thirteen years on record, buyers forecast more second-half volume than the market went on to deliver, 2013 — the survey's first year — being the only exception. The gap has usually been wide, and widest when conditions turned during the year.

Question 39

What share of secondaries is private equity vs infrastructure vs credit vs real estate?

Accepted Answer

Private equity was about 85% of H1 2026 volume ($91.17 billion), followed by infrastructure at 8.0% ($8.64 billion), private credit at 4.8% ($5.14 billion) and real estate at 2.5% ($2.65 billion), with hedge funds and agriculture/timber making up a fraction of a percent. Private equity has led every year the report has run.

Question 40

How fast is the infrastructure secondary market growing?

Accepted Answer

Infrastructure is the fastest-growing corner of the market. Infrastructure secondaries volume more than doubled year-over-year, up 104.6% to $8.64 billion, far outpacing private equity secondaries, which was roughly flat year-over-year. At 8.0% of total H1 2026 volume it remains small in absolute terms, but alongside private credit it is one of the largest growing strategies in the private funds secondary market.

Question 41

How fast is the private credit secondary market growing?

Accepted Answer

Private credit secondaries rose 35.4% year-over-year to $5.14 billion in H1 2026, well ahead of private equity secondaries, which was roughly flat over the same period. At 4.8% of total volume private credit remains small in absolute terms, but alongside infrastructure it is one of the largest growing strategies in the private funds secondary market.

Question 42

Are secondaries still mostly buyouts?

Accepted Answer

Largely, yes. Buyout (LBO) funds were the single biggest slice of private-equity secondary purchases at about $46.04 billion, or 42.7% of H1 2026 volume, still well ahead of venture, private credit and fund-of-funds interests; however, the share of LBO funds has edged down over time as venture, credit and infrastructure secondaries have grown in volume.

Question 43

How big is the infrastructure secondary market?

Accepted Answer

Infrastructure secondaries were $8.64 billion, or 8.0%, of H1 2026 volume in Setter's survey — up 105% year-on-year and 10× since 2016, the fastest growth of any asset class. Jefferies estimates about $20 billion for 2025 and forecasts $30 billion in 2026; Evercore counts $12 billion in H1 2026 with about $22 billion of dedicated dry powder. Dedicated funds include Blackstone Strategic Partners Infrastructure IV ($5.5 billion, the largest), Partners Group ($5.5 billion), Pantheon ($5.3 billion), Ares ($3.3 billion) and StepStone ($1.7 billion). Buyers target 12.4% IRRs, and infrastructure continuation vehicles have risen to 10.8% of GP-led volume.

Question 44

How big is the private credit secondary market?

Accepted Answer

Private credit secondaries were $5.14 billion (4.8%) of H1 2026 volume in Setter's count, up 35% year-on-year and first broken out in 2025. Evercore, which includes credit continuation vehicles, counts $20.4 billion in H1 2026 — already above its full-year 2025 total — of which $17 billion was GP-led, with GP-led credit pricing near 99% of fair value. Coller's $6.8 billion Credit Opportunities II (2025) and Ares' $4 billion Credit Secondaries Fund (2026) are the largest dedicated vehicles; Crescent's $3.2 billion and TPG Twin Brook's $3 billion continuation vehicles are the largest deals. Ares projects the segment exceeding $50 billion a year by 2030.

Question 45

What about real estate secondaries?

Accepted Answer

Real estate has gone the other way. It was 14–22% of Setter's volume in 2014–15 and is 2.5% ($2.65 billion) today, as core and value-add fund sales dried up and pricing widened — real estate fund interests traded at about 68–70% of NAV in 2025–26, the deepest discount of any strategy. Ares nonetheless counts a record $20.3 billion of real estate secondaries in 2025 on a broader definition, 72% of it GP-led recapitalisations, with fund distributions at a ten-year low of 7% of NAV. Goldman Sachs' Vintage Real Estate Partners III ($3.4 billion) is the largest dedicated fund.

Question 46

How big is the venture secondary market?

Accepted Answer

Setter excludes venture-backed direct secondaries from its market estimate, so the venture numbers come from elsewhere and vary with definition. PitchBook counts $106 billion of US VC secondary transaction value in 2025, dominated by company tender offers and SPV trades in a handful of names — the top 20 companies were 81% of value. Industry Ventures estimates the global venture secondary opportunity at more than $120 billion. Fund-level venture secondaries — the part that overlaps with Setter's survey — were $8 billion in 2025 per Evercore, with venture fund interests pricing around 78–79% of NAV.

Question 47

What are the biggest venture tender offers?

Accepted Answer

OpenAI completed a $7 billion employee tender in August 2026 at an $852 billion valuation, after a $6.6 billion tender at $500 billion in October 2025 that alone was about 6% of all US secondary value that year; Anthropic ran a tender of up to $6 billion at $350 billion in early 2026; SpaceX's December 2025 sale valued it at $800 billion, and Stripe's February 2026 tender at $159 billion. Nasdaq Private Market sizes the company-tender market at $35 billion for 2025 and Carta ran 396 tenders, up 62%.

Question 48

Who are the main venture secondary buyers?

Accepted Answer

StepStone's VC Secondaries Fund VI ($3.3 billion, 2024) is the largest dedicated fund; G Squared raised $2.3 billion in August 2026, Pinegrove Opportunity Partners $2.2 billion in January 2026 (the largest first-time venture secondaries fund, backed by Brookfield and Sequoia Heritage), and Industry Ventures — now owned by Goldman Sachs — runs more than $7 billion. Large generalist buyers such as Lexington and HarbourVest buy venture fund interests within LP portfolio sales; Yale's 2025 sale included venture stakes.

Question 49

What is the average secondary deal size?

Accepted Answer

The average secondary transaction was about $85.1 million in H1 2026, up 10.6% year-over-year. Average deal size has risen over time as ever-larger portfolios and continuation vehicles have come to market.

Question 50

How many secondary transactions happen per year?

Accepted Answer

Buyers completed about 1,266 transactions in H1 2026, down 4.7% from 1,329 a year earlier even as total volume rose, indicating continued growth in average deal size.

Question 51

What share of secondary deals go through an intermediary or adviser?

Accepted Answer

About 78.5% of H1 2026 volume — some $84.59 billion — ran through an intermediary or adviser rather than being transacted directly between buyer and seller. That share has risen over the life of the report, from around 57% in 2013, as portfolios coming to market have grown larger and more complex and as competition among buyers has made a broadly run process more valuable to sellers.

Question 52

What percentage of secondaries deals are paid in cash versus using a deferred payment structure?

Accepted Answer

Most transactions are paid in full at closing, with 73.6% of H1 2026 volume closed in all cash deals. 22.3% used deferred payment structures — down sharply from 37.8% a year earlier — with the balance using preferred equity or upside-sharing arrangements.

Question 53

How does North American deal volume compare versus European deal volume in the secondary market?

Accepted Answer

North American assets made up about 59.4% of purchased volume in H1 2026, with Western Europe the steady runner-up at 26.5% and global and Asia-Pacific assets filling the balance. On the buy-side, roughly 72.9% of buyers are headquartered in North America and 25.8% in Europe.

Question 54

How did COVID affect the secondary market?

Accepted Answer

The pandemic caused the sharpest downturn in the report's history. First-half volume fell to about $20.21 billion in 2020, down from roughly $46.0 billion in H1 2019, as pricing uncertainty froze deal activity. The market rebounded strongly the following year and has since set repeated records.

Question 55

How did rising interest rates affect secondaries?

Accepted Answer

The 2022–2023 rate shock briefly interrupted the market's growth. First-half volume dipped to about $45.09 billion in 2023 from $57.84 billion in H1 2022, and discounts to NAV widened as buyers repriced risk. Activity has since recovered to new highs as pricing improved and the secondary market has continued its secular growth.

Question 56

What does a secondary market adviser do?

Accepted Answer

Advisers (also called placement agents or private capital advisory groups) run the sale process for a seller or GP: valuing the portfolio, building the buyer list, running the data room and auction, negotiating price and terms, and managing transfer consents. For GP-led deals they also structure the vehicle and manage the LP election. 78.5% of H1 2026 volume — $84.59 billion — ran through an intermediary, up from about 55% in 2014; Evercore puts the intermediated share of LP-led volume at 88%.

Question 57

Who are the biggest secondary market advisers?

Accepted Answer

The investment-bank groups with the largest teams are Evercore Private Capital Advisory, Jefferies Private Capital Advisory (which advised on $30 billion in H1 2026 and over $33 billion in 2024), PJT Park Hill, Lazard and Greenhill (now part of Mizuho), alongside Campbell Lutyens (which advised on $38 billion in 2025, including seven $1 billion-plus LP trades), William Blair ($17 billion in the twelve months to March 2026), UBS, Houlihan Lokey, Raymond James and Goldman Sachs. Setter Capital, founded in Toronto in 2006, is the largest independent specialist, with more than 2,000 transactions and $40 billion of liquidity advised since inception and a buyer network of 1,800-plus firms. Evercore, Jefferies, Lazard, Campbell Lutyens, Greenhill, William Blair and Setter each publish semi-annual market reviews.

Question 58

How competitive is the secondary market for buyers?

Accepted Answer

Cyclically. The share of Setter's buyers who felt competition was higher than a year earlier spiked to 37% in H1 2021 and 34% in H2 2024, then fell to 10% in H1 2026 as record supply met a smaller capital overhang. Campbell Lutyens transacted with 51 different buyers in 2025, and evergreen vehicles — which paid about 90% of NAV for LP portfolios, roughly 330 basis points above the market — have become the marginal price-setter on plain-vanilla buyout portfolios.

Question 59

How much capital do secondary funds raise each year?

Accepted Answer

Secondaries Investor counted nearly $166 billion of final closes in 2025, a record and 48% above the previous high; PitchBook counted $120 billion and William Blair $95 billion on narrower definitions. Secondaries were 18% of all private capital raised in 2025, up from 7% in 2021. H1 2026 fundraising passed $50 billion, and Campbell Lutyens expects $130–145 billion for the full year with Evercore forecasting more than $200 billion.

Question 60

What are evergreen and 40-Act secondary funds?

Accepted Answer

Perpetual funds sold to wealthy individuals (in the US as registered tender-offer or interval funds; in Europe as ELTIFs and LTAFs) that invest largely in secondaries because seasoned, discounted fund interests provide immediate NAV, diversification and cash flow. The largest include StepStone Private Markets ($6.3 billion), Ares Private Markets Fund ($5.9 billion), Franklin Lexington's FLEX ($3.5 billion across US and international vehicles), Hamilton Lane Private Assets Fund, Carlyle AlpInvest's CAPM and Coller's C-SPEF ($1 billion). Typical terms are a 1.25–1.65% management fee and quarterly redemptions capped at 5% of NAV.

Question 61

How much private-wealth money is flowing into secondaries?

Accepted Answer

A lot, and quickly. Jefferies counts $113 billion raised by evergreen vehicles in 2025 with about 41% allocated to secondaries; Evercore estimates secondary managers control about $130 billion of evergreen AUM with 45% in secondaries, and that more than half of all secondary buyers now run an evergreen vehicle; 22% of Ardian's $30 billion ASF IX came from private wealth, double the previous fund. Torys projects secondaries-focused evergreen AUM of about $200 billion within five to ten years. Setter's buyer-type data still shows dedicated secondary funds at 93.7% of volume because most evergreen capital is deployed by those same managers.

Question 62

Can 401(k) plans invest in secondaries?

Accepted Answer

Increasingly. Executive Order 14330 (7 August 2025) directed the Department of Labor to rescind its 2021 caution on private equity in defined-contribution plans — which it did within a week — and to propose a fiduciary safe harbour, published on 31 March 2026 with a six-factor process test covering performance, fees, liquidity, valuation, benchmarking and complexity. More than 200 Empower plan sponsors have added private-markets sleeves through collective investment trusts run by Apollo, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, Neuberger Berman, Partners Group and others, and BlackRock plans private assets in its LifePath target-date funds in 2026. Secondaries are expected to be a major beneficiary because they provide seasoned, cash-flowing exposure that suits daily-valued products.

Question 63

Who owns the big secondary managers?

Accepted Answer

Increasingly, the large alternative-asset platforms. EQT completed its $3.2 billion acquisition of Coller Capital on 1 September 2026; Franklin Templeton bought Lexington in 2022; Carlyle owns AlpInvest, Ares owns Landmark, CVC owns Glendower, TPG owns NewQuest, PGIM owns Montana Capital Partners, Goldman Sachs bought Industry Ventures in October 2025 for $665 million plus earn-out, and TA Associates took a minority stake in Kline Hill in 2025. Independents include Ardian, Coller's peers Hollyport and Committed Advisors, Dawson Partners (formerly Whitehorse) and Kline Hill.

Question 64

What is a NAV loan and how does it compare with a secondary sale?

Accepted Answer

A NAV loan is debt secured on a fund's portfolio, used by GPs to fund distributions, follow-ons or bridge to exits without selling assets; loan-to-value is usually 5–30%. 17Capital, the largest specialist, closed a record $7.5 billion NAV lending fund in March 2026 and projects about $150 billion of annual disbursements by 2030. ILPA's 2024 guidance asks GPs to seek LPAC consent for NAV facilities and for any NAV-funded distributions. Setter's data shows leverage appetite among secondary buyers themselves is low: only 8.8% reported using meaningfully more debt in H1 2026.

Setter Volume Report — global secondary market volume, H1 2019

Total volume

Assets purchased

LP-led vs. GP-led secondaries

Breakdown of LP-led fund secondaries

Types of funds purchased

Types of GP-led secondaries

General partners' approach to the secondary market

Geography of assets purchased

Profiles of buyers

Buyers' scope of interest

Activity levels of small, medium and large buyers

Deals

Number of deals and average deal size

Deals and deal size by buyer size

Seller profiles

Seller location

Terms & returns

Payment terms

Leverage and returns

Buyers' target returns

Competition

Intermediation

Outlook

Projected volume for H2 2019

Expected distribution and NAV changes in H2 2019

Methodology