Fundraising

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 market has remained red-hot. While the area is not without its hurdles, uncertainty in the first half once again reinforced its worth.

Available secondaries capital grew to a record high of $302bn in the first half, with aggregate NAV of retail vehicles managed by secondaries investors surpassing $80bn as of March, according to a report from Jefferies.

Volume surpassed most full-year totals from the past decade in the wake of recent geopolitical tensions and macro uncertainty.

The firm recently closed its latest credit secondaries programme on $6.8bn, including its credit evergreen offering for US investors.

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

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 new evergreen vehicle will join the firm’s four active 40 Act funds targeting wealthy individual investors in the US.

In spite of shockwaves from Trump’s on-again-off-again trade war, the secondaries industry is gearing up for yet another record year.