ICG LP Secondaries secures over $200m portfolio from UK pension Cummins

ICG’s LP secondaries unit has bought an over $200 million portfolio from a UK pension fund, Secondaries Investor has learned.

ICG LP secondaries acquired a portfolio of buyout GP positions from the Cummins UK Pension Plan, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The transaction saw a discount to net asset value in the high teens, one of the sources told Secondaries Investor.

The transaction marks the fourth transaction from ICG LP Secondaries Fund I, with the LP secondaries team understood to have bought $1.5 billion in NAV over the past two years. The firm launched its debut LP-led secondaries fund in April 2022, according to Secondaries Investor data.

ICG declined to comment on the transaction. The Cummins UK Pension Plan did not respond to a request for comment.

ICG LP Secondaries focuses on acquiring quality funds – predominantly buyout portfolios in the US and Europe, its head Oliver Gardey told Secondaries Investor last year.

“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.”

Secondaries volume sat between $40 billion and $50 billion in the first half of this year, down from the $54 billion to $58 billion across the same period last year, according to advisory reports. LP-led transactions made up the bulk of activity, at around $25 billion to $27 billion of volume.