Aberdeen Standard Investments has carried out GP-led processes on several vehicles simultaneously in an effort to drive pricing for exiting investors, Secondaries Investor has learned.
The $669 billion investment manager carried out four tender offers and four asset sales on funds of funds vehicles with aggregate net asset value of €750 million, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Around half of LPs took up the offer, which priced at a slight discount to NAV, Secondaries Investor understands. More than 100 unique general partners and 140 unique underlying funds were represented in the portfolio, which ranged in vintage from around 2000 to 2010.
“If you tried to find individual solutions for these vehicles, I think you would have struggled and pricing would not have been attractive,” one of the sources said. “You need scale in order to give confidence to the secondaries investor that there will be a transaction.”
It is not clear who backed the deal, which closed at the end of 2019. Secondaries Investor understands that it was aimed at larger buyers with a lower cost of capital.
It is understood that Campbell Lutyens advised on the deal.
Aberdeen Standard manages more than 100 private equity vehicles, including many separately managed accounts and customised funds of funds mandates. In December, the firm held final close on US-focused fund of funds Aberdeen US Private Equity VIII, which raised $425 million against a target of $350 million, according to PEI data.
The firm’s listed private equity vehicle SLPET is 60 percent committed to 14 core managers including Advent International, CVC Capital Partners, Nordic Capital and Cinven, according to a January investor presentation.
Aberdeen and Campbell Lutyens declined to comment.
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