GP-Led Secondaries: From Innovation to Institutionalisation

It is astonishing to think how far the GP-led secondary market has come in less than 10 years.  Since the first transaction was completed in 2012, the GP-led market has grown to $32 billion in volume in 2020 and has evolved to offer a set of solutions that almost every major private equity fund sponsor is now utilizing.

Many of the earliest transactions represented innovative solutions for GPs to address a range of fund- or franchise-level concerns, including 1) lack of performance and the resulting lack of alignment between GP and LPs, 2) end-of-fund-life issues, or 3) challenges in capital raising. Since then, the GP-led market has become fully institutional. Today, it attracts brand-name, blue-chip sponsors, and has been the catalyst for tremendous growth in the overall secondary market (GP-led transactions accounted for over 50% of total secondary volume in 2020).  No one predicted volume would proliferate as quickly as it has.

We had an opportunity to speak with two of the pioneers of the market and leading experts on the topic, Brian Mooney and Stephen Sloan, Managing Directors at Portfolio Advisors, LLC, for an update on the latest market developments.

This article was originally published in Sensus Magazine. Download the PDF of this full article by clicking the image below.