Rod James
The $36bn pension, which counts Advent, TPG, Hg and Industry Ventures among its long-standing GP relationships, was overallocated to PE by more than 6 percentage points.
While there are advantages to using an M&A process to set the price of a GP-led deal, buyers should not wear out this approach.
The move from the Paris-headquartered buyout shop comes as GP-led processes eat more and more into the secondary buyout market.
The financial services holding company, which has $1.5trn in AUM, is paying $1.75bn for one of the largest remaining independent secondaries firms.
The single-asset process is focused on Hispanic food-focused Flagship Food Group, which was subject to a GP-led process in 2018.
The funds will complement the GP stakes business, which co-president Michael Rees called 'one of the most underpenetrated spaces in all of alternatives.'
The pandemic has certainly impacted the secondaries market – and it hasn’t been all bad.
The $197bn private credit and private equity giant follows TPG and Brookfield in looking to gain exposure to the rapidly growing secondaries market.
The pension has written a $500 million check for AlpInvest Secondaries Program VII, just months after committing $300 million to Ardian's ASF VIII.
The GP-led process centred on Hightower Advisors is one of several large, concentrated processes in market as buyers make up for lost time.