ICG closes debut LP-led secondaries fund on $1bn

Intermediate Capital Group has raised $1 billion for its debut LP-led secondaries fund.

ICG LP Secondaries Fund I was “significantly oversubscribed”, according to a statement seen by Secondaries Investor. Including co-investment special purpose vehicles and SMAs, the London-headquartered asset manager has received total commitments of $1.6 billion for its LP secondaries strategy, the statement added.

Fund I was launched in April 2022, according to Secondaries Investor data. It specialises in acquiring buyout fund interests from LPs and has a global remit, according to the statement.

ICG’s LP secondaries unit is led by head of private equity fund investments and LP secondaries Oliver Gardey, head of Americas LP secondaries Ryan Levitt and head of European LP secondaries Vivien Blossier.

Gardey was head of Europe at Pomona Capital before moving to ICG in 2019. He was followed later that year by Levitt, then a New York-based partner with Pomona, and Blossier, who joined from Unigestion.

“LP Secondaries was borne out of our belief that there is significant merit to specialisation within the secondaries market,” ICG’s CIO and CEO Benoît Durteste said in the statement. “The success of this first-time fundraise, for a pure LP secondaries strategy, is testament to the appetite among clients who share in our conviction.”

The fundraise is a “milestone moment for the ICG LP Secondaries team”, Gardey added. “We continue to believe that our specialist strategy and focus on LP secondaries will serve our clients well and allow us to create value through a differentiated approach.”

The LP secondaries unit has closed on seven LP stakes transactions to date, Levitt said. It has acquired over $1.5 billion of assets, which includes purchased NAV as well as unfunded commitments.

Last year, it emerged the unit had bought a portfolio worth more than $200 million from the Cummins UK Pension Plan, Secondaries Investor reported. That transaction marked the fourth deal the vehicle had made.

ICG LP Secondaries focuses on acquiring quality funds – predominantly buyout portfolios in the US and Europe, Gardey told Secondaries Investor in 2022.

“Our goal is to achieve private-equity-type returns with much lower risk and higher liquidity. How do you achieve that? By taking risk out,” Gardey said.

“We have a saying that you can get A returns from A managers, you can get A returns from B managers if you price it right, but it’s difficult to get A returns from C and D managers, no matter how you price it. We want to invest with sponsors that tend to under-promise and over-deliver.”

There was $61 billion of LP-led deal volume in the secondaries market last year, making up the bulk of the market’s $109 billion overall volume, according to a report from Lazard. Around 53 percent of total secondaries commitments are expected to be deployed into LP-led transactions this year, the report added.