Secondaries

The tail-end specialist – which PEI Secondaries Investor understands has raised $1.5bn for its latest GP-led programme – looks to back assets that have more to show after five-plus years in a fund, Steve Nicholls and Catherine Badour say.

Hybrid capital appears to be having a moment. The strategy’s knack for complex deals at a time of market disruption is juicing demand – including among liquidity-strapped GPs.

Most credit LPs are ‘grateful’ when GPs explore CVs to help them assess their options, a panellist said at PEI Group’s Private Debt Investor New York Forum.

The finding that CVs are performing in line with buyout funds while offering different return profiles persists in Evercore’s and HEC Paris’s latest survey, with PEI Group data showing a growing number of LPs have GP-led funds in their portfolios.

The deal marks the second continuation vehicle process Meridiam has undertaken this year, with GIC backing its prior €2.2bn deal.

Ares is the latest manager to raise a fund dedicated to providing structured products to GPs.

With most capital already deployed, sponsors and LPs are tailoring personnel, triggers and remedies to individual assets in continuation vehicles.

Sarah de Ste Croix and Gabriel Boghossian are set to join the legal giant as global co-heads of secondaries.

Investors are putting more resources towards shorter hold secondaries and co-investments, according to Mercer’s head of European infrastructure Julia Schiffer.

The process follows a larger deal the endowment secured last year, where it offloaded between $3bn-$4bn of private equity stakes with pricing in the mid-90% of NAV.