Secondaries Investor’s Second Thoughts

SI Decade: How the secondaries industry can empower women

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.

SI Decade: Why specialised secondaries are poised for growth

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"

SI Decade: The birth of programmatic secondaries sales

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"

SI Decade: Inside the biggest regulation changes to secondaries

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" 

SI Decade: Will the North American market’s dominance continue?

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.

SI Decade: From frustration to longer holds with single-asset continuation vehicles

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.

SI Decade: Zombie funds to continuation vehicles

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"

SI Decade: From financial crisis to secondaries sales

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.