Dayton Carr buys Thomas J. Watson Jr.'s venture partnership interests #
The trade generally credited as the first private-equity secondary — Carr goes on to found Venture Capital Fund of America.
Bars run to $260bn on one shared scale. LP-led GP-led H2 forecast
Origins
A handful of pioneers buy unwanted partnership interests from banks, insurers and founders' estates. No survey data exists; the market is measured in tens of millions.
1979
No volume estimate
1982
No volume estimate
Venture Capital Fund of America: the first dedicated secondary fund #
Carr raises about $6 million to buy LP interests from investors who want out — the template every secondary fund still follows.
1988
No volume estimate
1990
No volume estimate
1994
No volume estimate
1996
No volume estimate
1997
No volume estimate
1998
No volume estimate
An institutional market — and its first crisis
Setter estimates from 2006Specialist advisers appear, dedicated funds pass $5 billion and banks, insurers and pensions run the first billion-dollar portfolio sales; the 2008 crash pushes pricing to half of NAV and turns banks into the defining sellers of the decade. Volume bars from 2006 are Setter's own estimates, not survey data.
2000
No volume estimate
Coller-led consortium buys NatWest Equity Partners from RBS — about £670 million #
584 companies; Coller 57%, Lexington 34%, Hamilton Lane 9%. The largest secondary transaction to that date.
Strategic Partners founded #
Later owned by Credit Suisse, then bought by Blackstone in 2013 — today the third-largest secondaries platform.
2002
No volume estimate
Coller takes 80% of Lucent's New Ventures Group #
27 companies move into New Venture Partners II — the deal that established the 'secondary direct' segment.
Cogent Partners founded in Dallas #
The first dedicated secondary advisory firm; its semi-annual pricing analysis becomes the market's first regular benchmark. Acquired by Greenhill in 2015 for up to $97.6 million.
2003
No volume estimate
2004
No volume estimate
Abbey National sells £748 million of funds and directs to Coller #
The largest secondary purchase ever by a single buyer at the time; Bank One sells a $1 billion portfolio to Landmark the same year.
Secondary volume estimated at $8.4 billion #
Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst's estimate for the year; volume nearly doubles to $16.4 billion by 2008 on the same source.
CAIA / Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst
2005
No volume estimate
2006
Setter estimate
The ACAS deal: American Capital Equity I #
American Capital sells a 30% strip of its equity in 96 companies for $670 million into a $1 billion fund it keeps managing — HarbourVest leads with Lexington and Partners Group. The prototype of the GP-led secondary.
Temasek launches Astrea I — the first PE fund securitisation #
46 funds and $534 million of NAV packaged into rated notes; Goldman Vintage buys Mellon's $1.4 billion portfolio the same year.
Setter Capital founded in Toronto #
An independent secondary market adviser to sellers, buyers and GPs. Setter's market-volume estimates begin this year ($12 billion) and become the semi-annual Volume Report survey in 2013.
2007
Setter estimate
CalPERS runs the first mega LP auction — $2.1 billion #
Sold to a syndicate including Oak Hill, Conversus, Lexington, HarbourVest, Coller and Pantheon. Public pensions arrive as sellers.
Coller CIP V closes at $4.8 billion — the largest secondaries fund yet #
Lexington VI raises $3.8 billion; ACAS repeats its strip sale with a $585 million ACE II led by AIG.
2008
Setter estimate
Global financial crisis #
Volume hits a then-record before deal flow freezes; ABN AMRO's 32-company portfolio (about $1.5 billion) goes to Goldman, AlpInvest and CPPIB. Cogent's average high bid falls to 68% of NAV.
17Capital founded — NAV finance is born #
The Paris/London firm pioneers preferred equity and NAV loans to funds; Oaktree buys a majority stake in 2022 and its 2026 fund raises $7.5 billion.
HarbourVest consortium takes Macquarie Capital Alliance private — A$837 million #
With Pantheon, Partners Group and Paul Capital: secondary buyers as public-to-private acquirers.
2009Down year
Setter estimate
Pricing bottoms near half of NAV #
Mean transaction price 54% of NAV, volume about $10 billion. Goldman closes Vintage V at $5.5 billion into the trough — then the largest secondaries fund.
2010
Setter estimate
Banks become the defining seller #
Bank of America sells $1.9 billion to AXA Private Equity; Citi hands its $12 billion fund-of-funds business to Lexington; Coller buys Bank of Scotland Integrated Finance from Lloyds for £480 million.
Dodd-Frank and the Volcker Rule #
Banks' fund holdings capped at 3% of Tier 1 capital, driving a multi-year wave of LP sales; the rule is finalised in 2013 and takes effect in 2014. Pantheon starts buying infrastructure secondaries the same year.
2011
Setter estimate
Citi sells $1.7 billion of buyout fund stakes to AXA Private Equity #
207 interests plus directs; Coller buys Crédit Agricole Private Equity (now Omnes) and AXA takes $740 million from Barclays as Equistone spins out.
Lexington VII closes at $7 billion #
The first $7 billion secondaries fund, with a $650 million middle-market sidecar.
2012
Setter estimate
The first GP-led fund restructurings #
Behrman Capital III moves into a $1 billion vehicle backed by CPPIB and Goldman Vintage; Willis Stein III is restructured with Landmark, Vision and PineBridge. About 7% of deals are GP-initiated.
AXA Secondary Fund V ($7.1bn) and Coller CIP VI ($5.5bn) #
Coller immediately deploys into Lloyds' £1 billion-plus portfolio; HarbourVest's Dover Street VIII closes at $3.6 billion. Volume reaches a record $26 billion.
The Volume Report years: GP-leds emerge
LP / GP split trackedSetter starts surveying buyers twice a year, replacing its estimates with reported figures. Continuation vehicles go from tail-end clean-ups to a tool blue-chip sponsors use on their best assets.
2013
Volume Report survey
The Setter Volume Report launches #
Setter's first semi-annual buyer survey replaces its earlier estimates: $36 billion across all alternatives, about 1,300 deals, GP-led roughly 15% of volume.
Blackstone buys Strategic Partners; AXA Private Equity becomes Ardian #
Strategic Partners ($10 billion AUM) leaves Credit Suisse; Ardian spins out of AXA with $36 billion. Evercore builds its Private Capital Advisory group with Nigel Dawn from UBS.
Hark Capital founded — NAV loans go mid-market #
A second dedicated NAV lender alongside 17Capital, as fund-level financing becomes an alternative to selling.
2014
Volume Report survey
Ardian ASF VI closes at $10 billion; ICG Strategic Equity founded #
The first $10 billion secondaries fund. ICG's new unit is the first dedicated to GP-led deals — its fifth fund raises $11 billion in 2025.
JPMorgan spins out One Equity Partners; ACE III #
Lexington and AlpInvest buy about half of the OEP portfolio; American Capital's third strip sale ($1.1 billion, led by Coller, Goldman and StepStone); Ardian buys GE Capital's $1.3 billion portfolio.
Volume sets a record: $49 billion #
Greenhill Cogent counts $42 billion of PE alone. Temasek's Astrea II packages 36 funds with Ardian as manager.
2015
Volume Report survey
Greenhill buys Cogent; PJT Park Hill spins out of Blackstone #
The two largest independent secondary advisers become parts of listed banks. Lexington VIII closes at $10.1 billion and Coller CIP VII at $7.15 billion.
Whitehorse Liquidity Partners founded in Toronto #
Yann Robard, ex-head of secondaries at CPPIB, builds the preferred-equity model into a $25 billion firm (now Dawson Partners). Pantheon closes a $1 billion infrastructure fund aimed at secondaries.
Irving Place restructures Fund III into a $1.5 billion vehicle #
Blue-chip sponsors adopt GP-led deals for healthy funds, not just troubled ones; CalPERS sells about $1 billion of stakes.
2016Down year
Volume Report survey
A pause: volume slips to $42 billion #
Down 15% on 2015 — the only pre-pandemic decline in the survey era — yet GP-led volume reaches $9 billion, the 'fastest-growing segment', with pricing at 89% of NAV.
Ardian ASF VII closes at $14 billion; Astrea III sells the first rated PE bonds #
Temasek's Azalea places about $510 million of bonds on a $1.14 billion NAV portfolio. Ares agrees to buy American Capital for $4.1 billion, closing the ACAS chapter.
2017
Volume Report survey
Mubadala–Ardian $2.5 billion; Warburg Pincus Asia strip sale #
Ardian buys 14 LP interests and 14 directs from Mubadala and commits to a new $1.5 billion fund; Lexington and Goldman buy a $1.2 billion strip of Warburg's Asian portfolio. Volume reaches a record $61 billion.
Whitehorse's debut fund closes at $400 million; ICG SE II at $1.1 billion #
Structured liquidity and GP-led specialists both raise institutional capital for the first time.
2018
Volume Report survey
Nordic Capital's €2.5 billion continuation vehicle #
Nine companies move from Fund VII into a new vehicle led by Coller and fully underwritten with Goldman Sachs Vintage — the deal that made continuation funds mainstream.
Morgan Stanley Ashbridge I: the first single-asset CV fund ($675m) #
Pantheon launches the first dedicated private credit secondaries fund; Astrea IV lists retail PE bonds in Singapore.
Volume approaches $80 billion; tender offers peak #
Tender offers are 41% of GP-led deals — by 2026 they are 1% as continuation vehicles take over. Standard Chartered spins out about $1 billion of Asian directs.
2019
Volume Report survey
Norinchukin Bank sells a $5 billion, largely unfunded portfolio to Ardian #
The largest LP sale to date, advised by Greenhill; Investcorp's $1 billion European GP-led is underwritten by Coller.
Volume tops $85 billion — a fifth straight record #
Greenhill counts a record $42 billion first half. Setter's buyers report 31% expecting lower volume ahead — the most bearish reading before the pandemic.
Pandemic, record, rate shock
Three years that tested the market: a 56% first-half collapse, the first $100bn year, then a 29% drop as rates rose. Each time, a new high within two years.
2020Down year
Volume Report survey
COVID: first-half volume falls 56% to $20 billion #
60% of buyers see more deals fall through; MAC clauses explain a third of failures; Greenhill sees pricing at 80% of NAV. H2 rebounds to $41.6 billion.
GP-led out-sells LP-led for the first time #
With LP sales stalled, managers use continuation vehicles to hold assets: $32.4 billion GP-led versus $29.4 billion LP-led for the year.
Lexington IX ($14bn) then Ardian ASF VIII ($19bn) — successive records #
Jefferies builds a secondary advisory team by hiring five Greenhill managing directors; ICG SE III closes at $2.4 billion.
Alaska Permanent sells a $1 billion infrastructure portfolio to Strategic Partners #
The largest infrastructure secondary at the time; Hg leads a $12.2 billion re-investment in Visma, the largest software buyout, buying from its own earlier funds.
2021
Volume Report survey
The first $100 billion year: $143 billion #
Volume more than doubles. GP-led share peaks near 60% in the first half; all-cash closings exceed 90% of deals.
Clearlake's Ivanti single-asset deal; CD&R's Belron vehicle #
Named secondaries deal of the year — the single-asset continuation vehicle becomes the market's signature structure; CD&R's Belron deal is the largest single-asset CV to date.
Apollo lends $4 billion to SoftBank Vision Fund 2 — the biggest NAV loan ever #
Later upsized to $5.4 billion. Ardian buys Alaska Permanent's $1.5 billion infrastructure portfolio, a record for infra secondaries; Harvard sells $1 billion of stakes to Ardian.
Ares buys Landmark for $1.08 billion; Coller CIP VIII closes at $9 billion #
Consolidation begins: the alternatives giants buy their way into secondaries.
2022Down year
Volume Report survey
Rate shock: volume falls 29% #
LP pricing drops to about 81% of NAV (buyout 87%, venture 68%); deferred payments return; 29% of buyers expect lower volume ahead.
CalPERS sells $6 billion at a ~10% discount #
Advised by Jefferies, bought by Lexington and Glendower among others — still cited as the largest LP portfolio sale.
Credit and infrastructure secondaries get dedicated capital #
Coller Credit Opportunities I closes at $1.4 billion, the largest credit secondaries pool; Ardian ASF VIII Infrastructure at $5.25 billion, the largest infra secondaries fund; ICG SE IV passes $5 billion for GP-leds.
Franklin Templeton acquires Lexington; Oaktree buys into 17Capital #
17Capital has deployed $9 billion of NAV finance and calls 2022 a record year for the product; the SEC proposes its private fund adviser rules.
2023
Volume Report survey
Blackstone Strategic Partners IX closes at $22.2 billion #
With a $2.7 billion GP Solutions fund alongside — $25 billion in all, a record at the time. Morgan Stanley's Ashbridge II raises $2.5 billion for single-asset CVs; Goldman Vintage IX $14.2 billion.
Kaiser Permanente sells $5 billion; Ardian buys $2.1 billion from CPP Investments #
Kaiser's mosaic sale, advised by PJT Park Hill, goes to Ardian, Blackstone and Apollo at 10–15% discounts.
ILPA publishes continuation-fund guidance; SEC adopts the Private Fund Adviser Rules #
LPAC review, a 30-day election window, no crystallised carry for rolling LPs and a competitive process become the governance baseline; the SEC would mandate fairness opinions on every adviser-led secondary.
Credit secondaries reach about $6 billion #
Jefferies counts the segment for the first time; Tikehau launches its second private debt secondaries fund. Setter breaks out private credit as a category from 2025.
The $200bn market
Mega-funds, mega-portfolios and mega-continuation vehicles; wealth-channel capital and 401(k) reform open a new pool of buyers. H1 2026 sets another first-half record.
2024
Volume Report survey
Lexington X closes at $22.7 billion; HarbourVest at $18.5 billion #
Mega-fund season: Goldman Vintage IX ($14.2bn), Hamilton Lane VI ($5.6bn), StepStone SOF V ($7.4bn), LGT Crown VI ($7bn) and Pantheon's $5.3 billion infrastructure secondaries fund close within twelve months.
Fifth Circuit vacates the SEC rules; ILPA issues NAV-facility guidance #
Fairness opinions survive as market practice rather than law; ILPA asks GPs to seek LPAC consent for NAV loans and NAV-funded distributions.
Kaiser returns with a $3.5 billion sale #
Advised by Jefferies. Jefferies counts 27 LP deals above $1 billion for the year and credit secondaries of about $10 billion.
Volume sets a record: $153 billion #
Up 44%; average deal size climbs past $60 million as whole-programme sales grow; single-asset deals are more than half of GP-led volume.
2025
Volume Report survey
Ardian ASF IX closes at $30 billion #
The largest secondaries fund ever raised — 22% of it from private wealth, double the previous fund.
ICG Strategic Equity V: $11 billion for GP-leds only #
The largest fund dedicated to single-asset continuation vehicles.
New York City pensions close a $5 billion-plus sale #
450 commitments across 125 funds, more than 80 bidders, advised by Evercore and bought by Blackstone Strategic Partners.
Vista's $5.6 billion Cloud Software continuation fund #
The largest continuation vehicle reported to date; New Mountain ($3.1bn, Real Chemistry) and Inflexion (£2.3bn) set records the same spring.
Yale and Harvard sell #
Endowments become sellers: Yale shops up to $2.5 billion of PE and venture stakes, Harvard about $1 billion.
Credit secondaries scale up #
Coller closes a record $6.8 billion credit fund; TPG Twin Brook's $3 billion credit continuation vehicle follows in August. Setter breaks out private credit for the first time: $8.5 billion for the year.
Infrastructure secondaries take off #
Blackstone closes the largest infrastructure secondaries fund ($5.5bn) and Ares raises $5.3 billion; Jefferies sizes the segment at $20 billion. Setter's buyers report infrastructure volume up 105% by H1 2026.
Executive order opens 401(k)s to private markets #
EO 14330 directs the Labor Department to rescind its 2021 caution and propose a safe harbour; Empower, BlackRock and others move within months.
Goldman Sachs buys Industry Ventures; AlpInvest raises $20 billion #
Secondaries fundraising ends the year near $166 billion, a record; Ardian launches a dedicated single-asset CV strategy.
Volume passes $200 billion: $203.76 billion #
Up 33%; 2,255 transactions; LP-led fund interests price at 89.6% of NAV, GP-led at 95.0%.
2026
Volume Report H1 actual
EQT acquires Coller Capital #
Announced in January at $3.2 billion plus earn-out, completed 1 September; Coller International Partners IX closes at $17 billion the same month. Ares raises $7 billion for credit secondaries.
Crescent's $3.2 billion credit continuation vehicle #
Led by Pantheon — the largest credit CV to date. Cerberus's $2.3 billion SubCom vehicle (April) is the largest in digital infrastructure.
17Capital closes a record $7.5 billion NAV lending fund #
NAV finance now competes with secondaries for GP liquidity; Blackstone's Strategic Partners X passes $14 billion toward a $22.5 billion target.
DOL proposes a fiduciary safe harbour; ILPA drafts stricter CV guidance #
A six-factor process test for private assets in retirement plans (March); ILPA proposes independent price validation and anonymised bid summaries (June).
H1 2026: a first-half record of $107.74 billion #
GP-led up 16% to $49.65 billion (46.1% of volume); infrastructure doubles to $8.6 billion; sovereign funds match their highest-ever share of selling; buyers forecast $151.27 billion for H2.
OpenAI completes a $7 billion employee tender #
At an $852 billion valuation — the venture-backed direct market Setter excludes now runs to $100 billion-plus a year on PitchBook's count.
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