Activity across the limited partner-led and general partner-led secondaries market continues to increase as limited partners search for liquidity amidst a drought of private equity exits.
According to investment bank Evercore Inc.’s H1 2025 secondary market report, secondaries transaction volume rose to $102 billion in the first half of the year across both LP-led and GP-led transactions, exceeding any previous half-year period and most full-year transaction volume.
Jefferies Group LLC, in that investment bank’s “H1 2025 Global Secondary Market Review,” reported a similar $103 billion in volumes, also projecting full-year transaction volume of more than $210 billion.
According to Evercore, the LP-led market accounted for 54% of all volume in the first half of the year, meaning fund investors were seeking to monetize their private-fund investments at a time when distributions have slowed. Buyouts were the most prevalent strategy being sold off, at 72% of all volume, followed by growth (8%), venture (6%), credit (6%), infrastructure (6%) and others (2%).
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Secondary Market Transaction Volume Over Time ($B)
LP-led transaction volume
GP-led transaction volume
%GP-led deals
Source: Evercore Private Capital Advisory – H1 2025 Secondary Market Review
“The secondary market has grown about 15% to 20% annually over the past 15 years, and as an industry, we had done a nice job of raising capital, but secondary funds and buyers haven’t raised enough capital to keep up with the growth rate,” says Keith Brittain, co-head of secondary investments at Hamilton Lane. “So the biggest constraint to volume on the secondary market right now is lack of buy-side capital.”
Who is Selling?
According to Evercore, corporate and public pension funds accounted for almost half of secondaries seller volume during the first half of the year. They were followed by endowments and foundations, accounting for 17% of volume, up seven percentage points from the first half of 2024.
Family offices are also steadily increasing their share of secondaries volume; these investors are becoming more comfortable with using the secondary market as a liquidity tool, Evercore noted.
Sovereign wealth funds accounted for only 2% of secondaries volume, despite these investors’ large private market portfolios. According to its report, Evercore expects these investors to build out their internal secondaries capabilities.
According to alternative asset manager Future Standard’s 2025 mid-year private markets outlook, 40% of LP-led secondaries involved first-time sellers.
Reasons for Tapping the Secondaries Market
Investors are increasingly relying on secondaries to navigate liquidity challenges amidst a complex macro environment, which has resulted in traditional liquidity channels becoming strained, the Evercore report noted.
“With fundraising slowing and exit activity subdued across private markets, secondaries continued to serve as a vital release valve for both GPs and LPs during this time period,” the Evercore report stated.
LPs have experienced a slowdown in distributions from their managers, with vintages becoming older and dry powder building up. Manager fundraising has also slowed down in recent years. While private equity activity seems to be picking up in 2025, there is an increasing need for LPs to manage their liquidity.
According to Jefferies, 48% of LP sales were motivated by opportunistic liquidity needs and general portfolio rebalancing, while 25% of sales were done for administrative clean-up and vehicle wind downs. Another 23% of sales were completed to reduce allocations to non-core managers and strategies, and 4% to lock in returns and for portfolio de-risking.
“The GPs are feeling a lot of pressure from LPs in the last couple years to find ways in which to get liquidity in their private markets portfolio,” says Chris Lawrence, managing partner in Labyrinth Capital Partners.
LPs are also selling stakes in funds managed by non-core managers to streamline the number of manager relationships they are maintaining.
“You’re seeing a lot of investors—limited partners—reevaluate ‘What is the right number of managers?’ And, ‘If I need to cut back those number of relationships, who do I cut back, how do I cut back?’” Hamilton Lane’s Brittain says. “If I’m going to have a book of 50 core managers, how do I sell the 50 non-core managers? Not that they’re bad; I just can’t manage that many relationships, so I can use the secondary market now to alleviate that and just redeploy that into my core managers.”
Pricing Remains Attractive
Prices of LP stakes in private market funds have rebounded from their lows in 2022 and 2023. Strong demand, especially for infrastructure, credit and buyout secondaries, reflect their limited discounts, with each of these categories trading at more than 90% of their net asset value.
Elevated Competitive Tension Enhances Pricing
LP-led Secondary Pricing Trends (% of Reference Date NAV)
Buyout
Infra
Venture/Growth
Real Estate
Credit
Source: Evercore Private Capital Advisory – H1 2025 Secondary Market Review
“Average pricing for all LP portfolios was 90% of NAV,” the Jefferies report stated. “Pricing experienced a modest decline in early-April post-Liberation Day, but quickly and sharply rebounded, continuing the trend of consistent pricing increases since 2022.”
Pricing for real estate funds remains the worst of all asset classes. According to Jefferies, buyers are more interested in newer vintages with industrial and data center assets.
“If you look at what was going with some of these big pension sales, they were selling buyout LP interests, growth equity LP interests. They were selling credit, they were doing real estate, they were doing infrastructure, all of them,” Lawrence says. “All of them are on the table. It gets back to that whole decision that you, as an owner of private market assets, [determining] which one of these, in this basket that I’m selling, where [can I] get the price that I want most? That’s all fundamentally based on risk.”
Buyouts, Lawrence notes, generally would have less risk than an early-stage venture capital fund in which the assets have yet to be proven. The relative risk is reflected in the prices these funds bring on the secondary market.
One venture capitalist said that some venture secondaries sales have occurred for pennies on the dollar, with stakes in many “risky” funds essentially becoming worthless, which results in the secondary sale becoming a way to get rid of an asset for good, no matter the cost.
According to Jefferies, venture secondaries had the lowest pricing of all asset classes in 2023, with these stakes trading at less than 65% of their net asset value. The value of these stakes rebounded in 2024 and the first half of 2025, as strong equity performance has boosted the return prospects of venture funds that have portfolio companies that are near-IPO prospects.
Overall, the number of U.S. initial public offerings sold in Q2 2025 was up 16% from Q2 2024, but gross proceeds declined by 20%, according to data from EY.
“The strong finish renewed optimism in the IPO market, though the trajectory could be impacted by trade policy, geopolitical events and recession fears,” the firm wrote in a report published July 25.
Related Stories:
As Exits Slow, Venture Secondaries Tick Up
LP Interest Rises in Secondaries, Private Credit
With Slower Private Equity Exits, Secondaries Transactions Tick Up
Tags: Private Equity, secondaries
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