$103 billion, LP pricing at 90 percent of NAV — and Jefferies says in its own report it was driven by a lack of distributions. Record volume and record liquidity stress wearing the same headline. This is Infrastructure Secondaries Daily. Today we're starting with the Jefferies H1 number, then the Morgan Lewis continuation-vehicle breakdown, and an SBAI paper on the SEC's conflicts rule. And underneath all of it — did the disclosure architecture grow as fast as the volume did, or does 51 percent just mean more deals running the same playbook? Stay with us. This one's from Jefferies:
Global secondary market volume of $103 billion increased 51% from $68 billion in H1 2024. This represents the largest year-over-year H1 volume increase and the most active 6-month period in market history.
$103 billion in H1 2025, up 51% from $68 billion a year ago — the most active six months in the market's history. That's the number I kept waiting to see in print, and now it's sourced and dated. But read Jefferies' own framing — volume was driven by the lack of distributions from IPO and M&A pipelines. That's sellers who can't get out the front door, dressed up as a demand story. Right, and look at the split. LP-led at $56 billion, GP-led at $47 billion — but GP-led grew 68%. The faster-growing piece is the one where someone decided they couldn't wait for the next fund vintage. And the report says continuation vehicles hit a new high in average size. Bigger CVs, faster growth, while exit markets stayed shut. I want to know who that liquidity was actually built for. Here's the one that gets me — average LP pricing at 90% of NAV. Whose NAV, and as of when? Jefferies flags a dip post-Liberation Day and a sharp rebound, but a blended 90% across the whole market is one average sitting on a thousand stale reference dates. And the forced sellers rebalancing overallocations are almost always public pensions with liquidity mandates. The market sees the urgency and prices the bid right against them. This one's from Jefferies:
Global secondary market transaction volume rose to $162 billion, marking a 45% increase from $112 billion in 2023 and surpassing the previous record of $132 billion in 2021. Aggregate H2 2024 volume of $94 billion was 38% higher than H1 2024, with an 18% increase in LP volume and a remarkable 68% growth in GP-led volume.
This is the January 2025 Jefferies review — the full-year 2024 book. Total volume was $162 billion, up 45% from $112 billion, past the old $132 billion record from 2021. It gives us the dated counterpart to the H1 2025 number we hit at the top of the show. Here's the line I keep coming back to: LP pricing reached 89% of NAV, the second straight year of a 400-basis-point improvement. That's a real number with a real year on it. But the same report says GP-led grew 68% in H2 while exit markets were still constrained. Liquidity appetite can make the tape look cleaner than the asset story underneath. And look at what propelled the GP-led record — $75 billion, up from $52 billion. Jefferies credits buyout sponsors flooding into the space with more capital to deploy. So you get a demand-side surge meeting GPs who couldn't wait for the next vintage. More money chasing the same continuation structures. $288 billion of dedicated dry powder, an all-time high. When there's that much capital looking for a home, I get nervous about who's setting the price on the assets it lands in. All that dry powder can narrow discounts whether the underlying marks deserve it or not. 89% of NAV looks healthy until you ask which NAV, dated when. Here's Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP:
FY 2024 volume of $165 billion represents a ~40% YoY increase with a strong forward pipeline entering 2025 • GP-Led transactions accounted for $74 billion (45%) of FY 2024 volume • LP-Led transactions accounted for $79 billion (48%) of FY 2024 volume
The Morgan Lewis deck puts full-year 2024 at $165 billion — GP-led at $74 billion, LP-led at $79 billion. And then there's that little 17% infrastructure slice inside the buyer deployment split. That's the number I wanted. It sharpens the issue: is GP-led winning on asset quality, or did the LP-led bid-ask just push deals into the continuation structure? And note the sourcing — that 17% is the PJT Park Hill survey, FY 2024 deployment splits. That's a dated, named figure I can stand on, which is more than I can say for half the pricing claims that float through this market. Right, but look at the simple-structure slide they walk through — selling LPs elect to cash out, rolling LPs roll over. Clean on a diagram. The whole game is where the cash-out tender lands relative to a mark the same sponsor set. Which is exactly why the timing of the SBAI piece matters — the SEC's August 2023 conflicts rule is the regulatory backdrop this deck doesn't mention. A continuation fund is the sponsor selling assets to itself. The fairness work either shows up early in the document or it doesn't. From FS Super:
As a less mature private market sector, infrastructure has not always been a major part of the secondaries conversation; however, this is changing as deal volume has grown markedly in the past few years.
So this is the StepStone primer in the Journal of Superannuation Management — a clean explainer of LP-interest versus GP-led for infrastructure. And it does what a fundamentals piece usually does: starts with NAV growth and deal-volume evolution. But read it next to the Jefferies number we just hit — $103 billion, 51% up. This piece tells you the market is growing without pinning a pricing claim to a reference date. If a fundamentals primer won't anchor the pricing to a date, be careful with the growth story. What grabbed me is the voice — this is Australian super money. Forty-year liability horizon. That's a different LP than a US public pension running a quarterly liquidity mandate. And the piece flags infrastructure as the late arrival to secondaries — newer, less mature, with LPs only now learning the mechanics. That's when you most want honest documentation. It's also when a GP can lean on 'long-duration cash flows' to bless a mark a buyout shop would get laughed at for. Right — and a super fund with a 40-year horizon doesn't feel a 15-point tender discount the way a forced US seller does. Same deal, two completely different prices of urgency. Standards Board for Alternative Investments writes:
This rule, known as Rule 211(h)(2)-2, mandates advisers registered with the SEC to obtain and distribute a fairness or valuation opinion from an independent provider to investors before the due date for their election form. This requirement marks a radical change as it is the first time the SEC has specifically mandated a fairness or valuation opinion in any transaction.
So here's the rule that's supposed to fix everything — 23 August 2023, Rule 211(h)(2)-2. First time the SEC's ever mandated a fairness or valuation opinion in any transaction. That's genuinely a big deal. It is. And the line that matters to me is the timing requirement — the independent opinion has to land before the due date for the investor's election form. Before the due date. Sure. I always want to know — does it land in paragraph one, or does it show up at five p.m. the night the form is due? Right, and all the pressure sits on 'independent provider.' Independent from whom — because if the GP picks the opinion writer who wants the next mandate, you've regulated the paperwork while the conflict survives. And notice the scope — it only bites on SEC-registered advisers offering the sell-or-roll choice. That's the continuation vehicle architecture the Morgan Lewis deck we just hit put at $79 billion for 2024. So the rule's aimed at the dominant structure, which is the right place to aim it. Aimed at. Hitting is harder — the SBAI's whole framing is that implementation is still being worked through. A mandated opinion with no reference-date discipline is a marketing sentence with a stamp on it. Got a question, a story idea, or a correction for us? Send a note to infrastructuresecondariesdaily at lantern podcasts dot com. We read the inbox, and your feedback helps shape future briefings.
You’ll find links to every story we covered today in the show notes. If something caught your ear, they’re there for a closer read.
That’s Infrastructure Secondaries Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.