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PEI Awards 2019: global winners

Discover who took the gong for debut categories of Preferred Equity Deal of the Year and Direct Secondaries Deal of the Year.

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The secondaries market continued to evolve last year, so we launched two additional categories to capture that growth.

Preferred Equity Deal of the Year (global)

1. 17Capital

2. Landmark Partners

3. Investcorp

In January 2019, London-headquartered 17Capital completed the first ever preferred equity dividend recap, for a manager with close to €10 billion of committed capital across several European mid-market funds. The €275 million tranche, placed on a mature portfolio of buyout assets valued at €2 billion, allowed the manager to return liquidity to investors while maintaining exposure to a top-decile fund. It also opened the door to more fund-level dividend recaps which closed over the course of the year.

Direct Secondaries Deal of the Year (global)

1. HarbourVest Partners for Norwest Venture Partners, Avataar Venture Partners

2. Landmark Partners

3. HPE Growth Capital for WeTransfer

There was a landmark deal in the Indian secondaries market in the summer of 2019. HarbourVest Partners acquired a portfolio of six Indian growth assets from Norwest Venture Partners and used them to seed a fund. This vehicle is to be managed by newly formed venture capital firm Avataar Capital, led by former Norwest investment professional Mohan Kumar. The fund is $240 million in size, including follow-on capital to develop the portfolio. The deal took almost a year to complete.