Secondaries Investor’s Second Thoughts

Episodes

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  Inside LPs' growing liquidity toolkit 28.10.2026 34m

  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.
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  The boom in LP-led secondaries 13.07.2026 52m

  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.
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  The evergreen effect: Secondaries’ newest investors 01.06.2026 45m

  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
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  The 'tremendous tailwind' behind infra secondaries' growth 21.05.2026 29m

  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.
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  Data Dive: Reading the signals in secondaries sentiment 05.05.2026 31m

  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.
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  Is credit secondaries having its ‘moment’? 16.03.2026 44m

  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.
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  Secondaries' next iteration: market capitalisation in 2026 and beyond 20.02.2026 35m

  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.
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  What’s driving European secondaries activity? 06.01.2026 29m

  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.
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  The new era of GP-led secondaries 01.12.2025 52m

  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
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  Unpacking the early rise of GP stake secondaries 02.10.2025 25m

  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."
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  Inside secondaries' expansion into private wealth 24.09.2025 42m

  This episode is sponsored by Lexington Partners, Proskauer and StepStone Group The secondaries market is benefitting from private markets' push into the private wealth space, with managers either launching secondaries-focused vehicles or secondaries making up a meaningful component of many evergreen funds. Evergreen funds raised $16 billion in the first half of 2025 alone, 60 percent of which is dedicated to secondaries capital, according to estimates from Campbell Lutyens included in its H1 Secondary Market Overview Report. In this episode, editor Madeleine Farman is joined by Lexington Partners' Taylor Robinson and StepStone Group's Brian Borton, both of whose organisations run evergreen vehicles deploying into the secondaries market. Proskauer’s head of its registered fund group John Mahon also joins the conversation. In the wide-ranging conversation, Mahon, Borton and Robinson discuss appropriate ways to structure these vehicles, where to invest evergreen capital, regulatory updates, the long-term trajectory for these vehicles, and how they may impact the secondaries market.
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  Infra LP-leds rule by volume, but GP-leds are sizeable 09.07.2025 32m

  This episode first appeared on The Infrastructure Investor Podcast In this special crossover episode from our affiliate title, Infrastructure Investor editor-in-chief Bruno Alves sits down with Madeleine Farman, editor of Secondaries Investor, as well as Infrastructure Investor Americas editor Zak Bentley, to talk about the infrastructure secondaries market. The discussion tracks the evolution of the burgeoning infrastructure secondaries market, the asset class’s best-in-class pricing compared to other private asset classes, how LP-led deals rule by volume but GP-led transactions end up being the most sizeable, the outsized role of continuation funds, the promise of the nascent buyer-led secondaries opportunity, and much more.
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  The opportunity surrounding uncertainty 16.06.2025 44m

  This episode is sponsored by Pomona Capital and Proskauer While the Trump administration's tariff announcements and the subsequent unfurling of uncertainty globally does create some headaches, it also creates a tailwind for the LP-led secondaries market. "What the market has trouble adjusting to is uncertainty. And what happens in times of uncertainty, like the times we're dealing in now, is that [M&A and IPO] transactions tend to pull away," Michael Granoff, founder and chief executive of Pomona Capital, said in the latest edition of Secondaries Investor's Second Thoughts podcast. "That uncertainty does tend to push more sellers into the secondary market... And so, in a funny way, it's not that we're uncorrelated to the world – we are – but on the other side of things, all of those things that keep us up at night that we're talking about actually create more opportunity for a buyer in the secondaries market." While market participants continued to put their heads down and get deals done that were far along when the tariff announcements occurred, secondaries professionals are still working to digest second- and third-order impacts, Galen Lewis, a partner in Proskauer's private funds group, explained. "Normally, distress of some sort is something that creates additional volume in the secondaries market." In this far-reaching discussion, Granoff and Lewis discuss a variety of issues affecting the LP-led market and the drivers of underlying deal volume, including the regulatory developments that may spur or hinder LP-led portfolio sales in the coming year, the rise of '40 Act capital, as well as new entrants.
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  What’s next for StepStone after its record real estate fundraise? 09.05.2025 22m

  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.”
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  What's driving the growth of private credit secondaries 24.04.2025 33m

  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."
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  Behind the organisation opening doors to students of colour in secondaries 18.04.2025 18m

  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.
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  Do LPs need to take a more proactive approach to secondaries? 28.03.2025 17m

  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.
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  How specialised can the secondaries market get? 10.03.2025 45m

  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.
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  A record year for secondaries volume, but not for bonuses 27.02.2025 20m

  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.
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  Behind the numbers for secondaries' record year 14.02.2025 20m

  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