Secondaries Investor’s Second Thoughts

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.

The next record-setting year

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

Peeling back the onion on 2024 – literally

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.

Tail-end secondaries: The $900bn+ opportunity

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.

How Next Gen Leaders see the future 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.

Secondaries market on track to break records

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.

What are the ingredients for a successful secondaries deal?

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.