Key Takeaways
- • Jefferies Financial Group tracked approximately $103 billion in secondary market transactions during the first half of 2025, representing a 51% increase year-over-year and establishing a new record for first-half volume.
- • New market entrants, alongside traditional secondary buyers, are driving the expansion of the secondary private equity market, broadening the competitive landscape and increasing transaction velocity.
- • The secondary market achieved $240 billion in total transaction volume for full-year 2025, marking a 48% year-over-year increase and continuing a multi-year trend of record-breaking performance.
- • Both GP-led and LP-led secondary transactions are contributing to growth, with institutional investors increasingly turning to secondaries for liquidity, portfolio optimization, and capital redeployment.
Summary
The private equity secondary market is experiencing sustained record growth driven by a combination of increased liquidity demands, portfolio management needs, and an expanding roster of market participants. Jefferies Financial Group's tracking data shows that secondary market transactions reached approximately $103 billion in the first half of 2025, a substantial 51% increase compared with the equivalent period in the prior year. This result marks the strongest first-half performance on record for the secondaries segment.
The market expansion is being fueled by new entrants alongside established secondary buyers, creating a more competitive and dynamic environment. These newcomers are diversifying the capital base available for secondary transactions, enabling more transactions to reach completion and supporting higher aggregate volumes. The increased participation reflects growing recognition among institutional investors of secondaries' role in addressing liquidity constraints, executing portfolio rebalancing, and generating attractive risk-adjusted returns in a complex fund environment.
Full-year 2025 results underscore the durability of this growth trajectory. The global secondary market closed 2025 with $240 billion in transaction volume, a 48% year-over-year increase that substantially exceeded prior-year records. Both GP-led and LP-led secondary activity contributed meaningfully to this expansion, as general partners sought to optimize portfolio management and limited partners sought liquidity solutions during a period of elevated capital deployment demands across the broader private markets ecosystem.
The market expansion is being fueled by new entrants alongside established secondary buyers, creating a more competitive and dynamic environment. These newcomers are diversifying the capital base available for secondary transactions, enabling more transactions to reach completion and supporting higher aggregate volumes. The increased participation reflects growing recognition among institutional investors of secondaries' role in addressing liquidity constraints, executing portfolio rebalancing, and generating attractive risk-adjusted returns in a complex fund environment.
Full-year 2025 results underscore the durability of this growth trajectory. The global secondary market closed 2025 with $240 billion in transaction volume, a 48% year-over-year increase that substantially exceeded prior-year records. Both GP-led and LP-led secondary activity contributed meaningfully to this expansion, as general partners sought to optimize portfolio management and limited partners sought liquidity solutions during a period of elevated capital deployment demands across the broader private markets ecosystem.
Go deeper than the headline
Research every firm in this story, track the ones that matter and get the daily briefing — free for 7 days.