Pantheon closes fund dedicated to GP-leds

Pantheon has held a final close on its first fund dedicated to GP-led secondaries transactions.

The London-headquartered alternatives manager raised $624 million for Pantheon Secondary Opportunities Fund, according to a statement. A spokesman for the firm said the target was disclosed only to prospective investors, but that it was “substantially exceeded”.

The fund has already closed 11 transactions with a value of around $200 million, completed alongside other Pantheon vehicles and fund managers, the statement said.

“As general partners increasingly access the GP-led market to solve for a fundamental limitation of the private equity fund model, which typically provides a finite period in which to grow and realise investments, we expect this market to continue to expand and involve,” said managing partner Paul Ward.

Secondaries Investor reported in April that Pantheon was raising a fund dedicated to single-asset secondaries deals. The spokesman said that while a “significant focus” of the fund will be single-asset deals, it has always been able to invest in other types of GP-led deals.

Limited partners include listed vehicle Pantheon International, which committed $150 million.

Pantheon has committed $3.6 billion to 37 GP-led deals since 2010, it said in the statement.

Among the deals it has backed in the past 12 months are a $362 million single-asset process involving Alpine Investors, Clearlake Capital Group’s process on car wheel manufacturer Wheel Pros and a €1.2 billion GP-led transaction involving nuclear medicine business Curium.

Pantheon is  also in market with its seventh flagship secondaries fund, targeting $2 billion.

Pantheon is one of several groups to have raised or begun raising GP-led-focused funds. Secondaries Investor in February reported that Blackstone was set to raise one called Strategic Partners GP Solutions. That vehicle has raised $769 million toward a $1.5 billion target, according to Secondaries Investor data.

In May, LGT Capital Partners raised $1.5 billion for Crown Secondaries Special Opportunities II, which is dedicated to concentrated secondaries deals.

GP-led deals accounted for 60 percent of transaction volumes in the first half of 2021, according to data from Evercore. Single-asset deals accounted for 25 percent of all volume.