People – Firms

New fund formation has been made more difficult as limited partners are being kept busy by their existing managers coming back quicker than ever with new, and larger, funds.

The move is part of a wave of mid-market investment banks bringing on secondaries talent to make sure they can offer sponsors the continuation fund option as part of an exit path.

The fear is losing out on M&A mandates with sponsors because they don't have the ability to offer the continuation fund option as part of a firm's exit options for portfolio companies.

Where a lot of private equity firms struggle is the sheer amount of data they’re presented during diligence, often dealing with fragmented insights into a company’s operations.

Blair is one of several banks and financial advisers thinking about adding secondaries capabilities.

UK head Olivier Decannière and former US head Benoît Verbrugghe are among those not listed as key people on the secondaries giant's ASF IX fund, which is seeking $15bn.

Sustainability reporting is not window dressing, nor is it a marketing exercise. Similar to financial reporting, ESG reporting needs to be a data-driven process.

As secondaries has exploded in popularity over the past few years (reaching a record volume level last year of about $130bn), the growth of the talent pool has not kept up.

While private equity is sitting on high levels of unspent capital, firms may find they have to hold assets longer than anticipated to wait out some of the economic flare-ups.