Jefferies says $103 billion in the first half. Big number — but before we treat it like gospel, we need to know whether Campbell Lutyens is even counting the same market. This is Infrastructure Secondaries Daily. Two H1 surveys landed at the same time, there's a named SEC rule sitting under the fairness-opinion question, and Daniel and I don't agree on what a 'clean exit' actually buys a pension. Let's read it. 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. Market volume was driven by multiple tailwinds, including the lack of distributions from standard IPO and M&A pipelines fueling supply and diversified expanding pools of secondary capital fueling demand.
$103 billion in H1 2025, up 51% from $68 billion a year earlier — Jefferies calls it the most active six-month stretch in market history. And the date stamp matters: July 2025 report, H1 reference period. Read it with that in mind. Look at what's driving the supply — Jefferies says it's the lack of distributions from IPOs and M&A. Translation: the normal exit doors are jammed, so LPs are coming to the secondary market because they need to, not because they want to. Pricing for all LP portfolios came in at 90% of NAV — and credit where it's due, Jefferies actually dates the move: a dip in early April after Liberation Day, then a sharp rebound. Give me that reference point over a floating marketing number. Ninety cents on the dollar of NAV. For a pension running a liquidity mandate, that ten-point haircut is on a mark that may already lag — it's the cost of needing cash this quarter instead of waiting for the next vintage. GP-led volume jumped 68% to $47 billion, and the average continuation vehicle size hit a new high. Bigger CVs, more first-time buyers writing checks — the appetite's obvious. What it tells you about the assets underneath is a separate question. Right — and Jefferies has venture, credit, and real assets all gaining CV traction. My question every time: who couldn't wait for the next fund to solve this, and whose economics does the rollover actually serve? Here's Campbell Lutyens:
The goal of this research is to provide insights into the market dynamics that are shaping the industry. Campbell Lutyens' (“CL”) analysis is based on proprietary data gathered from more than 120 of the most active investors in the secondary market.
Campbell Lutyens 1H 2025 is on the desk, built from proprietary data from more than 120 of the most active secondary buyers. This is the report I've been calling ground truth all week — so let's read it next to the Jefferies review we just hit, instead of just waving at it. They don't have to agree, either. Jefferies samples one slice of flow, CL polls 120 investors — same market, different lens. The interesting part is where the pricing lines diverge. Right — CL separates LP-led from GP-led, then gives infrastructure secondaries their own section. That's the breakout I want, because the 'infra is eating secondaries' story lives or dies on the denominator math. My eye goes straight to the GP-led section. Every continuation vehicle in there is a vote some LPAC had to take — and I want to know how much runway those members had before the deadline, because CL pricing gives you the print, not the process. Fair, and the process question gets a regulatory anchor later in the show — there's an SBAI piece on the August 23, 2023 SEC rule that hits exactly that fairness-opinion-with-teeth point. For now, pricing: if CL marks a tender level, I want the reference date attached to the NAV behind it. 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
Morgan Lewis lays it out clean — FY2024 secondary volume hit $165 billion, and GP-leds were $74 billion of that. Forty-five percent of the market is sponsors transacting with themselves. And I want the asset-class split on the record — PJT Park Hill's FY2024 survey puts buyout at 68% of where secondary buyers actually deploy capital. Infrastructure? Six percent. Six. So every continuation-vehicle pitch I sat through that opened with 'long-duration infra cash flows' — that's six percent of the denominator trying to sound like the whole table. Right, and watch the slide right after the volume chart — it goes straight from 'here's the record number' to 'what is a continuation fund.' Selling LPs cash out, rolling LPs roll. Daniel, you've sat on the wrong side of that election. Every time. The 'simple structure' diagram is simple for the GP. The LP gets a fork — take the tender at whatever discount to a NAV nobody dated, or roll into a vehicle written for the sponsor's economics. Either way, the clock's already running. And the deck doesn't print a single reference date next to those purchase-price figures. A continuation-vehicle marketing slide without an as-of NAV is a brochure, Daniel. It's a Morgan Lewis CLE deck — they're selling the structure, not auditing it. But it's telling that the standard pitch leads with the $165 billion and never once shows you what the assets were marked at, or when. From Standards Board for Alternative Investments:
One significant alteration in these rules is the Adviser-Led Secondaries Rule1, which addresses conflicts of interest when advisers offer investors the choice between selling or exchanging their interests in a private fund for interests in another vehicle managed by the adviser or related parties. 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.
Here's the rule I've been chasing all week. Rule 211(h)(2)-2, effective August 23, 2023 — the first time the SEC has ever mandated an independent fairness or valuation opinion in any transaction. Adviser-led secondaries, full stop. And the trigger language matters — it's the moment you offer an LP the choice between cashing out or rolling into another vehicle the same adviser controls. That's exactly the continuation-vehicle fork where the GP's economics and the LP's optionality stop pointing the same direction. Right — and the timing requirement is what gives it teeth on paper. The opinion has to be distributed before the election-form due date. The Standards Board frames it as a radical change. My question is whether it changed practice or just the paperwork. "Before the due date" doesn't do much if "before" means forty-eight hours. I've sat on the LPAC side of these — get me the fairness opinion two weeks out or don't pretend I voted on anything. And "independent provider" — independent from whom, exactly? The adviser who hopes to hand them the next mandate? There it is. The rule mandates the opinion. It says a lot less about whether the shop writing it wants to keep getting paid by the GP. This one's 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. While the specifics of those conversations vary from one LP to the next, they do share a common interest in understanding the fundamentals, which we explore in depth in this whitepaper.
So StepStone's running a fundamentals primer for the Australian super crowd — and the framing's right there in paragraph one: LP-led means portfolio rebalancing and liquidity needs; GP-led means the manager initiates the sale. Two very different motivations jammed into one label. And it's pitched straight at superannuation funds. Those are exactly the long-duration pension pools that end up on the sell side when a liquidity mandate bites — and the market knows it. I'll give them this: they're honest about maturity. They say infra hasn't always been part of the secondaries conversation. After the Jefferies and Campbell Lutyens H1 numbers we just walked through, the benchmarks for infra are still being built in real time. Which means when a super fund reads 'priced at NAV' in one of these LP-interest deals, it doesn't have a settled infra discount curve to check it against the way it might in PE. A primer's nice. A reference date would be nicer. My worry is the GP-led half here — the document defines it as the GP retaining control and offering liquidity. Generous. The question StepStone won't print is who couldn't wait for the next vintage, and why. If Infrastructure Secondaries Daily is part of your routine, hit subscribe wherever you're listening. And if you've got a moment, leave a quick review — it helps other people find the show.
Links to every story from today's briefing are in the show notes, so if one caught your ear, you can dig into the original reporting there.
That's Infrastructure Secondaries Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.