Fundraising

Co-CEO Marc Lipschultz said ‘we plan to be the leader’ in GP-leds during the firm’s 31 July Q2 conference call.

The fund is the latest in a string of launches as the demand for credit secondaries grows.

The fund is slightly skewed towards LP-led deals and looks for opportunistic investments in the GP-led market, head of infrastructure secondaries, Wandy Hoh, tells Secondaries Investor.

‘The returns have been very strong over time in this area, and that’s making it attractive to investors,’ COO Jonathan Gray said of Blackstone’s secondaries business.

The secondaries vehicle exceeded its initial target by nearly three times.

Global head of Blackstone Strategic Partners Verdun Perry told Secondaries Investor in 2019 that debt secondaries was a strategy still too immature for serious consideration.

More capital was raised for secondaries in the first six months of this year than any other first half since the strategy’s inception.

The firm’s second GP-led fund, which closed on $4bn earlier this month, is over four times the size of its predecessor.

Flexstone Partners Asia Selection III is now fully subscribed for by the firm’s majority shareholder, Natixis Investment Managers, and will invest its capital over the coming years, chief executive Eric Deram tells Secondaries Investor.

A North American pension fund is exploring commitments to six funds managed by Ares, Blackstone, HarbourVest, Macquarie, Pantheon and Partners Group.