Chris Witkowsky
The capital solutions group was formed to combine the bank’s GP-led secondaries advisory activity with its efforts to source capital for direct and co-investments.
The deal, which involved buying fund stakes from Aberdeen Standard Investments, is the first of size for ICG's LP funds team, led by two ex-Pomona executives.
Nexus’s fund is young compared to most GP-led deals, though some recent transactions have involved younger assets in what appears to be something of an expansion of the scope of the strategy.
Large deals have helped drive volume since last year in what has continued to be a brisk secondaries market in the general economic recovery.
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.