Secondaries Spotlight: Up, Up & Away
With deal volumes projected to hit $230 B in 2025, the secondaries market is booming. Growing investor demand, new capital sources and scalable structures are creating compelling opportunities—though sustained growth will hinge on continued capital access.
In an article penned a year ago, we used the word “staggering” to characterize the growth of the secondaries market over the last three decades, and we predicted that this growth would continue. Predictions, of course, can be dangerous. Who would have predicted the economic policy starting with a “T” would be one of most talked about topics of 2025? Who would have predicted that England would have a summer filled with sunshine or that M&A volumes would continue to remain subdued (again)?
In our case, the prediction of secondaries’ continued ascendance seems to have been correct. In June 2024, many forecasts called for market volumes to exceed $140 billion by the end of that year.1 The figure ended up closer to $160 billion.2 This prompted some market participants to take a more bullish view, predicting that 2025 market volumes would reach $230 billion. To put this in context, transaction volume in 2019 was just $88 billion—six years later it looks on track to reach $230 billion, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17%+. The word “staggering” feels justified.
1. Source: Jefferies. As of June 30, 2024.
2. Source: Evercore H1 2025 Secondary Market Report
