PJT Partners appoints new global head of secondaries

PJT Partners has appointed a New York-based partner as its head of secondaries, five months after prior head Jon Costello left the investment bank.

The firm made David Perdue global head of secondaries advisory over the summer. He comes from the bank’s strategic advisory group where he had a client coverage focus.

The market is in a “very different place to where it’s been for most of its history”, Perdue told Secondaries Investor in an interview, as GP-led deals and smaller, concentrated portfolios dominate dealflow due to their being easier to diligence.

The $80 billion of dealflow recorded last year could easily “double or triple in the next few years,” he added, with the mix of LP portfolios and GP-led deals moving nearer to a 50/50 split.

Prior to joining PJT, Perdue spent 13 years at the New York and London offices of Goldman Sachs, where he was a senior member of its leverage finance team, according to his biography on PJT’s website.

Costello, the unit’s previous head, left in May to set up a buyside secondaries unit with Stone Point Capital, Secondaries Investor reported.

“[Perdue] was behind a lot of the GP-led deals that Park Hill has brought to market,” said one New York-based advisor. “He’s got good relationships.”

There have been several significant personnel changes at PJT Partners in the past 18 months. In summer 2019, Johanna Lottmann joined from Lazard as European secondaries advisory head.

In May this year, Secondaries Investor reported that London-based managing director Sandro Galfetti was to join UBS to head its EMEA advisory business. Then in July, managing director Matthew Wesley and director Joseph Slevin left to set up an advisory business at Guggenheim Securities.

PJT Partners advised on $14.5 billion-worth of secondaries deals last year, a 20 percent jump on its previous year’s transaction volume, according to the Secondaries Investor Annual Advisory Survey 2020 published in April.