News from Ely Place

In November 2025, Daniel Roddick moderated a roundtable on secondaries and liquidity solutions hosted by PEI at the Foundling Museum in London.

The conversation touched various relevant topics concerning GP-led secondaries, including views from LPs in the processes, potential conflicts, the impact of the M&A market on secondaries, and growth in the space. In general, the tone was positive and encouraging, and it was clear that the market is advancing in sophistication and that fundraising continues to tick upwards.

The main takeaways from the discussion were:

The market in 2025 will be even bigger than expected a few months ago

• The market is expected to reach $220m-$250bn of volume in 2025. Some argue it could reach a trillion by 2030.
• Various sub asset classes are emerging strongly, especially infra, credit and VC.

The GP-led space is still a buyers’ market

• While there is some increased competitive pressure seen on some transactions, with a $5 trillion market in the primary space secondary volumes still represent a small percentage of this.
• Advisers need to be careful about which transactions they take on given the number of transactions that are failing to complete.

Evergreen funds mean the supply of buy-side capital is growing

• Evergreen funds are emerging and will continue to increase the supply of capital in the coming year or two. GPs need to be careful about how deploy if there is a ‘glut’ of capital, needing to think about the long term in their decisions.
• It is questionable whether retail investors fully understand the gates and liquidity mechanisms. This could lead to increased regulation and therefore higher costs for GPs.

Valuations are the key focus in due diligence

• While discounts are important, the secondary buyers on our table preferred to focus on GP valuations. One said they found no meaningful correlation between discount they paid and returns. Instead, buying good assets and correctly understanding their expected performance is far more impactful. However, an upfront discount and showing mark ups can help in fundraising.

The GP-led toolbox is expanding

• GP-leds are expected to make up the biggest share of the secondaries market. We should expect to see several ‘CVs on CVs’ in due course.
• Variations of GP-led deals discussed included the ‘GP-assisted LP led’, whereby the GP takes the initiative to source liquidity for the selling LP. Such arrangements and the details of the mechanism can be formalised in the LPA.