Dutch pension APG shops big PE portfolio

While GP-led deals took the biggest slice of market activity in 2022, LP deals, especially in the second half, started flowing back into the market.

As traditional LP portfolios flood back into the secondaries market, some chunky sales are offering big opportunities for buyers seeking diversification away from the concentrated bets they made last year.

While GP-led deals took the biggest slice of the activity in 2022, LP deals, especially in the second half, started flowing back into the market.

One such portfolio is being shopped by Dutch pension administrator APG Asset Management, which managed €627 billion in assets as of November 2021. APG has long been a major private equity LP. Its private equity portfolio had net asset value of about €26.3 billion as of 2020, according to the system’s annual report.

APG is selling a chunk of its private equity holdings, more than €2-billion-worth, on the secondaries market, two sources told affiliate title Buyouts. Park Hill Group is working as adviser on the deal, a source said.

Spokespeople for APG declined to comment Friday.

APG in 2011 sold its interest in AlpInvest Partners to Carlyle Group, after which it developed APG Asset Management to continue its private equity investing.

APG’s portfolio hits the market around the same time as another large portfolio from California Public Employees’ Retirement System. CalPERS wants to sell up to $6 billion from its private equity portfolio in a process run by Jefferies, Buyouts previously reported.

Market expectation is that CalPERS won’t be able to sell the entire $6 billion worth of private equity fund stakes, but maybe $1 billion to $2 billion, sources speculated. At the very least, it’s unlikely the entire portfolio would be acquired by a single buyer.

Large portfolio sales took up buyer interest in the second half of 2021 as many buyers looked to diversify beyond the concentrated bets they made in the early parts of the year and in 2020.

In 2021, GP-led secondaries deals like single-asset continuation funds represented about 52 percent of the $132 billion in total estimated activity, according to Jefferies full-year secondaries volume report, published this week. Traditional LP volume was $64 billion in 2021, representing a 156 percent increase from 2020, Jefferies said.

The sales have come amid an environment of rich pricing, which generally helps convince institutions to move forward with contemplated rebalancing. Pricing for buyout funds hovered around 97 percent of net asset value, Jefferies said.