5 Secondaries Trends GPs and LPs Should Be Watching
Secondaries are taking center stage in alternative investments, changing the face of investor relations, fund due diligence and operational demands.
Secondary investments are no longer just a tactical tool for limited partners (LPs) to generate liquidity under pressure and for general partners (GPs) to manage portfolios at the margin. They are now central to how firms manage exposure, rebalance portfolios and extend ownership of high-performing assets.
According to a report produced by SS&C and Private Equity Wire, secondaries volumes rose 48 percent year-over-year to reach USD 240 billion in 2025, with expectations to surpass USD 300 billion in 2026.
What’s driving the rapid rise of secondaries, and how is it reshaping liquidity conditions, underwriting practices and LP-GP dynamics?
In the report, senior leaders at HarbourVest, Barings, StepStone Group, Coller Capital and other firms discuss where they see the market going and what it will take to execute complex transactions on tight timelines. You’ll also hear from Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA) Director of Industry Affairs Brian Hoehn, who offers his candid perspective on the unique challenges LPs are facing and what they expect from GPs launching continuation vehicles (CVs).
Their perspectives make one thing clear: the rules of engagement in secondaries are changing fast. Here are five trends every fund manager and allocator should be paying close attention to:
- A structural liquidity gap is driving sustained demand
Investors and managers are still working against the lingering effects of a liquidity shortage. “When cash flow yields of approximately 20 percent over a previous 25-year horizon in private equity (PE) dropped to 10 to 12 percent since 2022, the structural liquidity shortfall could not be resolved through pacing adjustments alone,” says Philippe Ferneini, partner at StepStone Group.
As distributions remain subdued and capital tied up in long-period investments, secondaries have become an important tool to rebalance exposure, generate liquidity and manage vintage risk. Will these investments remain a fixture beyond the tail of the liquidity crunch? Ferneini predicts “the market may not grow at the 40 percent rate it’s been setting for two years, but it will certainly maintain a healthy 20 percent even under favorable deal conditions.”
- Discounts are drying up, and pricing discipline matters more than ever
As the market grows more competitive, opportunistic discount buying is becoming a less viable strategy. Buyers are leaning into disciplined underwriting, with greater emphasis on asset-level insight and pricing accuracy.
According to Ian Wiese, managing director, portfolio finance at Barings, the majority of the upside in secondaries “still comes from underlying asset value creation, particularly in seasoned portfolios where there is meaningful operational upside left.”
- GP-led transactions are meeting rising demands for transparency
GP-led secondaries now sit at the center of the market, offering flexibility to hold high-performing assets while unlocking market liquidity. But even with improved alignment mechanisms, GPs and LPs are not always on the same page.
ILPA’s Brian Hoehn explains why, facing GP timelines as short as 20 days, many LPs are taking the sell option in a CV process due to operational limitations, not dissatisfaction with the asset. “Market estimates suggesting that 80 to 90 percent of LPs elect to sell should not be interpreted as an endorsement of pricing or process,” he says, “but rather understood within the context of internal policy constraints and time pressures.”
- Due diligence pressure is increasing
Time and resource pressure is a prominent feature of secondaries due diligence. As these transactions become more complex, LPs are essentially re-underwriting portfolios while also assessing process integrity and GP alignment. To do so, LPs must interpret portfolio company performance data and legal terms from multiple unstructured sources across large, consolidated platforms.
Integrating portfolios and maintaining consistent views across deals demands a level of data maturity that many organizations are still building toward, with 62 percent describing their data management capabilities as either early-stage or a work in progress.
- Retail expansion is amplifying reporting demands
The influx of retail investors entering the market will only add to the complexity of front-office operations. Traditional processes built to serve a concentrated institutional LP base are unlikely to scale to a larger, more demanding retail investor base.
“As access widens, expectations around valuation transparency, liquidity mechanics and fee clarity inevitably rise,” says Michael Li, managing director and APAC head at SS&C GlobeOp. “Managing hundreds of smaller investors materially increases reporting complexity, and there is tangible downside to inefficiency.”
Turning scale into an advantage
Secondaries are accelerating and reshaping how firms manage liquidity, evaluate deals and engage investors. As these trends unfold, the fundamentals remain unchanged: the need to turn data into actionable insight, strengthen investor relationships through transparency and timely reporting, and execute with speed and confidence.
That’s where the right technology infrastructure separates those who will thrive in a more demanding operating environment from those who will struggle. With SS&C Intralinks DealCentre AITM, firms can streamline due diligence, extract insights from unstructured data and connect learnings across the deal lifecycle. And with FundCentre AITM, GPs can deliver consistent, scalable reporting that meets rising investor expectations.
The firms that adapt their operating models now will be best positioned to execute complex deals efficiently and meet evolving investor expectations. Whether you’re launching a secondary transaction or delivering LP reports, Intralinks’ product suite provides the personalized, scalable, purpose-built tools to showcase your fund’s unique value proposition and build lasting investor relationships.
To explore the trends shaping the alternatives space in more detail, download the full report.