Secondaries firms see another strong year for deal volume

Secondaries market participants told attendees at a private equity conference in Chicago this week that transaction volume for 2015 could surpass last year's figure.

Secondaries market participants speaking at a recent private equity conference anticipate that the volume of private equity secondaries transactions in 2015 will be in line with or slightly above last year’s figure.

Closed private equity transactions in 2014 were between $40 billion and $45 billion, Luca Salvato, investment partner with Coller Capital, told the audience at the Pension Bridge’s Private Equity Exclusive conference, which took place in Chicago on Monday.

At a secondaries panel taking place on Tuesday, several secondaries firms shared their predictions on the size of the market for this year.

Here’s what they had to say:

Mark Benedetti, managing director at Ardian, said there have been fewer transactions of $1 billion or more in size, but taking into account an increase in GP-led restructurings and more deals closing in general, he anticipates the total will be on par or above that of 2014.

Brett Gordon, managing director at HarbourVest Partners, thinks it will be above. “It’s 20 percent above so far this year at our firm,” he said.

Barry Miller, partner at Landmark Partners, said that last year there were about a dozen transactions of $1 billion or more, while so far this year there have been five transactions of that size, which leads him to believe the 2015 total figure will be roughly in line with 2014.

Red Barrett, president and CEO of Permal Capital, thinks deal volume this year will be about the same as last year.

Mark Maruszewski, partner at StepStone, was the only one to believe the total figure for 2015 will be lower than last year.