Lexington nears $15bn target in crowded fundraising market

The firm’s predecessor vehicle, Lexington Capital Partners IX, closed on $14bn in 2020.

Lexington Partners is on its way to the target of its latest flagship fund, which would take equal place as the largest standalone vehicle dedicated to secondaries.

Lexington Capital Partners X has raised $12.8 billion, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The vehicle began raising in May last year, according to Secondaries Investor data.

Its predecessor vehicle, Lexington Capital Partners IX, closed on $14 billion in 2020, surpassing its $12 billion target, according to Secondaries Investor data.

Lexington emerged as the seventh-biggest raiser of secondaries capital over the last five years in this year’s SI 50 ranking, with $16.8 billion of commitments over the time period.

This year it emerged the New York-headquartered firm would buy around one-third of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System’s $6 billion portfolio of private equity fund stakes it had put on the market, acquiring somewhere in the range of $1 billion-$2 billion-worth, Secondaries Investor reported at the time.

Secondaries firms have felt the fundraising pinch alongside their private equity peers this year. Private equity secondaries fundraising in the first three quarters of this year fell to $24.2 billion, according to Secondaries Investor data, marking a 49 percent drop compared with the same period last year, when such funds raised a record $47 billion.

The picture may change in the coming year: 56 percent of LPs plan to find the cash to commit to private equity secondaries funds over the next 12 months – the highest proportion of respondents to express their interest in the strategy since 2019, results from affiliate title’s Private Equity International’s LP Perspectives 2023 Study show.

A spokesperson for Lexington declined to comment on fundraising.