Secondaries Investor’s Second Thoughts

What’s next for StepStone after its record real estate fundraise?

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.”

What's driving the growth of private credit secondaries

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."

Behind the organisation opening doors to students of colour in secondaries

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.

Do LPs need to take a more proactive approach to secondaries?

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.

How specialised can the secondaries market get?

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.

A record year for secondaries volume, but not for bonuses

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.

Behind the numbers for secondaries' record year

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

Secondaries deals are on the cards for Australia's Aware Super

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.