Secondaries

With the market recovery, and more pricing certainty, LP portfolios were expected to come back in a big way this year.

The new entity – Bee Alternatives – plans to raise approximately $280m across two feeder funds, one managed by the firm and another by Ant Capital.

Creating a culture where women feel valued is key to improving gender diversity in secondaries, says Akin Gump’s Mary Lavelle.

The deal is one of several run by established managers helping to drive secondaries volume to what several professionals believe will be record levels this year.

The deal, unusual for a pension, is a structure that has traditionally been used by banks and other financial institutions to trim down private equity holdings while still retaining exposure to certain GPs.

Whoever assumes the role of head of private equity at CPP Investments will oversee an asset class that has been one of the biggest contributors to the pension’s net income in recent years.

Growth equity, secondaries, impact funds and long-hold vehicles cropped up in this year's list of the industry's biggest firms and the strategies they manage.

Regulators and fund managers are adapting to accommodate greater retail investor participation in private markets, say SEI's Ross Ellis and ANZU Research's Steve Unzicker.

'The fact that half of all private equity investors think ESG investing will in itself boot their portfolio returns should be a wake up call to anyone who still thinks ESG is a 'nice to have' or a PR tool,' said founder Jeremy Coller.

Other single-asset deals that have been in the market this year include GI Partners’ MRI Software, Clearlake Capital’s DigiCert and Novacap’s Syntax Systems.