Private equity

The placement agent, which takes a generalist approach to primary and secondaries advisory, has made a number of hires from advisers including Mercury, chief executive Paul Buckley tells Secondaries Investor.

The firm is investing its $2.5bn Ashbridge Transformational Secondaries Fund II, which closed in 2023.

Brentwood Associates’ latest secondaries process follows a fund restructuring deal undertaken by the PE firm in 2021.

The deal marks the first CV for mid-market specialist Estancia Capital Partners, Secondaries Investor understands.

PE firms with more knowledge about assets through their secondaries strategies could be more aggressive in the M&A bidding process.

Montana Capital Partners acquired the interests via a strip sale which it then transferred over to a new vehicle managed by Prudential Financial.

The single-asset process will allow the firm to hold onto a software company which was part of a multi-asset deal it ran in 2019, Secondaries Investor has learned.

HarbourVest and Goldman Sachs are understood to be the lead buyers on the multi-asset continuation fund and a single-asset continuation fund, respectively.

The firm is considering the strategy at a time when several traditional private equity buyout firms have expanded their capabilities into GP-led secondaries, while others are making moves into the space.

Conference-goers at the BVCA’s secondaries conference this week mulled over the market’s future, with bifurcation at the heart of some predictions.