Secondaries Investor’s Second Thoughts

LP-led secondaries volume continues to swell, with over $100 billion of activity recorded last year. As demand has increased, so too has investors' level of sophistication when approaching liquidity options. The use of structured secondaries – like collateralized fund obligations, NAV financings and preferred equity – is increasing as some LPs opt to keep hold of private markets positions within their portfolios while still seeking liquidity options. The partial liquidity market comprised around 10 percent of the LP-led secondaries market last year, Adrian Millan, a partner at PJT Park Hill told PEI Secondaries Investor's Second Thoughts podcast. The LP-led market recorded $117 billion of volume last year, according to a year-end report from PJT Partners. John Kettnich, a member of StepStone Group’s private equity team focusing on secondaries, joined Millan in the latest edition of the podcast with PEI Secondaries Investor editor Madeleine Farman. The pair discussed the trends and dynamics shaping the LP-led structured secondaries market, where these options do or don’t work for investors’ portfolios and what the growth of this corner market means for broader secondaries market volume moving forward.

This episode is sponsored by LGT Capital Partners, Dawson Partners and Pomona Capital Record volumes and growing liquidity pressures are pushing limited partners into the market as secondaries become a core portfolio management tool rather than a last resort. What was once viewed as a reactive measure has become a core tool for managing private equity exposure with repeat sellers now a defining feature of the landscape. Asset-class expansion is also encouraging more activity. In this episode, Secondaries Investor editor Madeleine Farman is joined by Dawson Partners’ Yann Robard, LGT Capital Partners’ Pauline Wetter and Pomona Capital’s Michael Granoff. They explore why LP sales have become an expected part of managing private equity exposure; how geographic dynamics shape seller motivations; and how asset-class expansion – from private credit to infrastructure – is changing underwriting and pricing across the market.

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."