Coller amasses $9bn in final close for latest secondaries fund

Coller Capital has become the latest firm to raise a mega-fund amid the pandemic as the market breaks records across deal volume and capital raising.

The London-headquartered secondaries giant has collected just over $9 billion for Coller International Partners VIII, according to a source familiar with the fundraise. The fund closed on Monday and includes capital for co-investments.

The fundraise comes as the secondaries market faces its next stage of evolution, with GP-led deals growing to account for almost half of total transaction volume last year, according to Greenhill data. Sponsor-led processes hit $26 billion last year – around 44 percent of the $60 billion that traded.

CIP VIII is 26 percent larger than its predecessor, which raised $7.15 billion in 2015. Almost one-third of the final total was already committed as of the end of December.

It is understood that more than 200 investors committed to the fund. Secondaries Investor data show the fund’s target was $9 billion and that it launched in April 2018.

Coller declined to comment.

LPs include Maryland State Retirement and Pension System, Public School and Education Employee Retirement Systems of Missouri and Fubon Life Insurance, Secondaries Investor data show.

Coller’s raise adds to the roughly $95.6 billion in final closes for secondaries vehicles across all strategies last year. Firms that amassed capital last year include Ardian for its $19 billion ASF VIII programme, Lexington Partners for its $14 billion LCP IX fund and AlpInvest Partners for its $10.2 billion fundraise for its ASP VII programme.

Jeremy Coller last year said that as a result of the pandemic, buying opportunities were set to increase as both distressed and mainstream sellers adapt to a market changed by the crisis.

“Transactions volumes are likely to rise significantly after an initial period of market dislocation, as distressed sellers are joined or replaced by mainstream investors starting to re-shape their portfolios for a new economic reality,” he wrote in the firm’s annual report  published in July.

“The GFC provided Coller [Capital] with many good investment opportunities, and we expect the current crisis to do the same.”

The firm has also been leading the way in D&I initiatives. In December it teamed up with law firm Akin Gump to form The Women in Secondaries network, an industry group for women that seeks “empower, promote and support women working in the secondaries industry”.