Staff Writer

The asset class is seeing funds come to market with dedicated allocations to secondaries, such as funds-of-funds recently closed by Partners Group and Pantheon. A €500m block of infrastructure fund interests currently up for sale also indicates dealflow is picking up sharply.

Blackstone spin-out Millennium is building its team in anticipation of what it believes will be a record-breaking year for secondary venture capital investments.

James Sunday has been named partner at the Simsbury, Connecticut-based group, while Ira Shaw has been promoted to vice president.

The $14.5bn state endowment wants to pare down its private equity portfolio, which contains 150 funds from 80 GPs, to a size that its small staff can better manage. No word yet on the potential size of the sale.

Direct secondaries specialist Cipio Partners garnered €137m in capital for its first blind-pool — short of its original target.

The secondaries firm has added a principal in New York and has promoted Jason Sambanju to managing director and co-head of the firm’s Asian operations.

The firm has appointment Jeffrey Granoff as principal after opening a New York office. More appointments are expected in the first quarter of 2011 as the firm looks to deploy its $250m debut fund.

Lexington will purchase 33 LP stakes, most of which Lloyds had reportedly acquired when it took over HBOS.

Gerry Grimstone will step down as chairman of Candover Investments as the investment team breaks away to form a new entity, Arle Capital Partners.

London-based Hollyport Capital hit the halfway mark in fundraising for its third secondaries fund, targeting £30m.