Private capital investors sold a record $110bn of stakes in ageing funds in 2025, as difficult exit conditions pushed limited partners to seek liquidity through the secondaries market, according to a report by the Financial Times.

According to David Atterbury of HarbourVest Partners, sales of fund stakes were up about 25% from 2024, which had itself been a record year. The transactions spanned private equity, private credit, venture capital, and infrastructure, with buyout funds accounting for more than half of supply in the first half of the year.

“With liquidity at a premium and markets rattled by tariff-driven shocks, asset owners and managers increasingly turned to secondary deals to unlock cash and rebalance portfolios,” Atterbury said.

The growth reflects structural changes in private markets, which have expanded to about $22tn globally. Pension funds overweight private equity have used secondaries to rebalance portfolios as traditional exits through M&A and IPOs remained constrained.

When combined with continuation fund transactions, in which buyout firms transfer assets into new vehicles, total transactions linked to ageing holdings likely exceeded $200bn in 2025, according to Hamilton Lane. Dedicated secondaries funds raised $118bn by November, putting the strategy on track for another record year.

Jeremy Coller, founder of Coller Capital, said activity could rise further. “We could see the record tumble again in 2026,” he said, “perhaps pushing $300bn on its way to becoming an asset class in its own right.”

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