Secondary-Palooza Still Waiting On The “Palooza”
The mid-2007 credit crunch brought about a bit of renaissance for several groups—distressed investors, mezzanine lenders and, more recently, secondary buyers of LP stakes. You might say secondaries are having a “moment.” For that reason, I half expected today’s Private Equity Secondaries Conference to be a bit like Drexel Burnham’s infamous “Predator’s Ball,” at the peak of the junk bond heyday. An exciting event for a specific group of professionals on the verge of a big, exciting seachange. Clearly, I got ahead of myself. The conference, while useful, doesn’t exactly have that frenzied, “new masters of our domains” feel. Secondaries are certainly gaining momentum, but they’re not there yet. The thing that’s been holding them back is the bid-ask spread, and judging by the comments I’ve heard today, it hasn’t really improved in the past month.
