M2O hires Evercore exec in sign of refocused market attention on LP sales

M₂O, the boutique firm whose secondaries business is led by former Credit Suisse global secondaries head Mike Custar, has hired an LP sales expert from Evercore to help enhance its operations for the strategy.

Jake Stuiver joins the White Plains, New York-based advisory firm and placement agent as a vice-president. He has more than a decade of LP secondaries advisory experience and spent seven years at Evercore.

“Jake’s creative, hands-on approach to customised liquidity solutions is a perfect complement to our fund placement and GP-led businesses,” Custar said in a statement seen by Secondaries Investor. “His expertise will enhance our plan to build on the unique market opportunity created by most institutional secondary advisors going through major overhauls and shifting priorities. While others are moving away from the LP market, for us it is the ideal complement to our other business lines, and a natural extension of our platform.”

Prior to Evercore, Stuiver founded River Street Capital, a boutique secondaries advisory firm. He has sourced roughly $5.5 billion of total deal volume, according to the statement.

“I really feel that M₂O was not only the best cultural fit for me, but also the best fit in terms of pedigree, track record and reputation to be able to take that step to become the LP advisor of choice,” Stuiver told Secondaries Investor.

Stuiver’s appointment comes at a time of upheaval in the advisory market. Jefferies, from which M₂O founders spun out of in 2012, is itself one of the most recent entrants to the advisory world, having hired five managing directors from Greenhill who started in January, as Secondaries Investor reported.

Guggenheim Partners, Rothschild and Aviditi Partners have also launched advisory businesses over the past year.

Most firms, with the exception of Tradition, which hired a group of professionals from Duff & Phelps last year, are focusing on the expanding GP-led market. The LP portfolio market is due for a shake up, Secondaries Investor wrote in November, with technology set to play a role and smaller advisors expected to enter the fray.

LP sales fell to account for 47 percent of the $60 billion in deal volume last year, from 67 percent a year prior, according to Evercore’s Secondary Market Survey Results dated January.

Transactions M₂O has advised on include the 2019 stapled deal involving Crestview Partners. That transaction closed in early 2020, as sister title Buyouts reported.

Custar left Credit Suisse in 2017 after 13 years at the Swiss bank to join M₂O, as Secondaries Investor reported.

M₂O, which stands for “made to order”, provides fundraising, secondaries advisory, direct placement and strategic advisory services. The firm has advised on more than 50 transactions representing over $15 billion of capital raised since 2012, according to the statement.