In a recent webinar hosted by Palico in association with Real Deals and IPEM, a panel of industry experts sat down to discuss mid-market private equity’s response to lockdown disruption and lay out the challenges and opportunities the pandemic presents for Europe's mid-market managers. • 6 min. Read •

Price can make or break a secondary deal. In the good old days of 2019 it was not uncommon to see fund positions trading at premiums to net asset value (NAV). Such was the demand for PE assets that buyers were willing to pay over the odds, betting on further appreciation for the acquired funds' portfolio companies. This time last year we estimated that the average secondary deal price was above par, only the third time this has happened in the history of the secondary market and a continuation of the two previous years. • 5 min. Read •

What are secondary buyers looking for in these uncertain times? What are attractive investments today? What advice would buyers give LPs wanting to sell in this environment? These were topics addressed by our Head of Strategy, Claire Commons in a webinar we hosted in partnership with SuperReturn. Claire was joined by some of the most preeminent secondary experts from VCFA, Coller Capital and Hamilton Lane. • 6 min. Read •

How is COVID-19 affecting the secondary market? What best practices should LPs consider when selling their fund stakes in this uncertain environment? We cover those topics and more in this recap of our conversation with prominent players in the space. Our Head of Strategy here at Palico, Claire Commons, got insights from David Chu at LACERA, Anthony Le from Nokia Investment Management Corporation, and Gerald Cooper from Campbell Lutyens. • 6 min. Read •

Over the last three months, we have been fielding questions from buyers and sellers and comparing notes with clients, as everyone attempts to gauge the temperature of the secondary market. Since this crisis hit, there has been a degree of paralysis on the part of vendors as they have attempted to understand the valuation environment.

The opening months of 2020 have been nothing if not uncertain. We're in a period of rapid and immense upheaval with businesses and industries pivoting quickly as they respond to emerging news and data. This applies to the private equity industry too.

Is there a liquidity crunch heading LPs' way? 

For a number of years now GPs have wrestled with a conundrum. On the one hand, they have a wall of committed capital at their disposal; on the other hand, the unprecedented demand for deals combined with liquid debt markets has meant accepting nail-bitingly high earnings multiples. This is the gift and the curse of dry powder hovering at an aggregate of $1.45trn, a historic high.

It can be difficult to make sense of the social, economic, and financial disruption unfolding in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus, otherwise known as Covid-19. What is certain is that stock markets have tanked by circa 25% over the past month, with some of the largest single-day drops in history. This has obvious implications for the valuation of private equity assets and will need to be woven into pricing calculations in the secondary market.

These are unprecedented times. We’ve faced recessions before, but we’ve never experienced a coordinated lock-down such as this. Investors will, understandably, be shaken by current events, but we want to offer some words of reassurance. At times like this, it is important to keep a cool head and make smart decisions that lead to well-reasoned actions. Here we take a look at what we are seeing in a secondary market that has seen LP-led deals in particular, become more sophisticated since the last recession of 2008/09.

Private equity is an inherently long-term play, though that longevity has been chipped away over recent years. The median hold in the US ticked down once again in 2019 and now clocks in at 4.9 years, continuing a trend that began in 2014. At that time the average holding was 6.2 years, according to data from Pitchbook’s US PE Breakdown report. The M&A boom of the past five years has provided funds with ample opportunities to exit their deals, compressing hold times.   

This trend has been driven by top-quartile holding periods (that is, top quartile by duration, not performance), which were down to 7.1 years in 2019 from almost nine years as recently as 2016, but other quartiles have also shown falls.