Chris Witkowsky
With assets live in the market, outside buyers occasionally swoop in and make better offers, upending months of work building consensus on the secondaries deal.
The deal is one of the high-profile secondaries in the market this year helping to push activity volumes that some expect to reach record highs by year-end.
Assets slated for a secondaries deal periodically get snapped up by outside buyers before the deals can close, a risk that increases the longer such deals linger in the market without closing.
The deal is leading off a year that many secondary market players expect to be particularly busy with not only GP-led transactions like restructurings but also large, traditional LP portfolio sales.
Nash Waterman and John Wolak had co-led the investment bank's secondaries unit after former secondaries head Jonathan Costello left in 2016.
GP-led deals are on the rise and will likely become a much greater part of overall secondary activity, which has historically been led by LP fund stake sales.
The two large GP-led deals are part of a shift in the secondary market away from traditional sales of fund stakes held by limited partners, to deals by GPs to manage assets held in older funds.
The firm is among a group of mid-sized buyers that focus on lower-mid-market and mid-market secondaries deals.
Buyers who have shown interest so far include some traditional secondaries firms, sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies.
The US pension had set up a partnership with Pathway Capital Management last year to sell fund stakes.