Blackstone’s CEO and co-founder Stephen Schwarzman also said in an earnings call earlier last week that 'to our knowledge' no Blackstone private equity fund interest has been sold on the secondaries market.
Other than this secondaries play, the $2.3bn pension may commit no further capital to private equity GPs this year as it struggles with a 'cash flow crunch'.
The Washington, DC-based mega-firm has already made investments from Carlyle Mezzanine Partners II and bought some mezzanine investments on the secondaries market.
New York firm SecondMarket says it has attracted more than $500m worth of secondaries for its new LP fund interest trading platform.
A management group from Lehman Brothers Venture Partners will spin-out to become Tenaya Capital, which will have $750m in capital and 45 portfolio companies. HarbourVest completed a synthetic secondary transaction as part of the spin-out.
Secondaries specialist Coller Capital was the largest investor in the listed fund of funds’ recent rights issue, having picked up 50 million shares. The investment was made from Coller's fifth fund, which is around 55% deployed; the firm is expected to raise up to $6bn for Fund VI later this year.
Cogent has hired former Ernst & Young transaction manager Briac Houtteville as an associate and promoted Bernhard Engelien to managing director.
Average high bids for private equity fund interests fell to 61% of NAV in the five months through November 2008, driven by stale holding values, according to Cogent Partners.
The San Francisco-based secondaries firm has hired Rein Gabriel as an associate. Last month it hired former SL Green/Gramercy Capital executive John Graham to boost its acquisitions team.
The Southern California-based private equity advisor has hired James Gamett to head up secondary investments, which the company believes has become an attractive investment area.