Key Takeaways
- • Global secondaries deal value surged 45% to a record $162 billion in 2024, driven by major asset managers including Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Lexington Partners, and Ardian, yet Africa captured minimal share of this activity.
- • Africa's secondary market is constrained by a limited pool of international buyers and local specialists compared to Asia and mature markets, plus the dominance of development finance institutions that historically resist selling assets on secondary markets.
- • Only a few local dedicated secondary funds operate in Africa, according to GPCA research published in August 2025, creating a structural bottleneck that requires sustained private sector growth to attract offshore capital.
- • Transaction size remains a critical barrier—offshore investors require large deal volumes to justify entry into African secondaries, but the continent lacks sufficient sellers willing to divest large equity stakes simultaneously.
Summary
Africa's private equity secondaries market remains underdeveloped relative to global peers, according to research from the Global Private Capital Association (GPCA) published in August 2025. While the global secondaries market—where investors purchase existing assets from other investors—reached a record $162 billion in 2024, representing 45% growth, Africa's participation has remained marginal. The GPCA's analysis identifies structural and institutional barriers that distinguish the continent's market from more mature ecosystems in Asia and North America.
The primary constraint is insufficient deal supply and buyer concentration. Jeff Schlapinski, GPCA's managing director of research, noted that only "a few local funds are active in this space" across Africa. This scarcity reflects two interconnected problems: the dominance of development finance institutions (DFIs) as capital providers to African private equity funds, and these institutions' historical reluctance to exit positions through secondary sales. The DFI model prioritizes long-term capital deployment for development impact rather than portfolio liquidity, creating structural illiquidity in the market.
International expansion by major secondary asset managers—including US firms Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, and Lexington Partners, alongside French manager Ardian, each of which raised tens of billions in dedicated secondary funds since 2021—has largely bypassed Africa. Richard Okello, co-founder of Sango Capital, an African private equity and venture capital investor, articulated the economic reality: "For players from other geographies to come buy secondaries from Africa, the transaction size has to make sense, which means you need lots of sellers willing to sell large chunks." Without sufficient high-volume sellers in any given vintage or sector, offshore capital allocators lack the deployment efficiency required to justify market entry and fund management infrastructure.
Market maturation requires accelerated private sector growth to generate the density of exit opportunities necessary to attract international secondaries capital. According to experts consulted by Semafor, increased formation of dedicated African secondary funds—currently sparse—depends on private equity asset growth creating sufficient inventory for secondary transactions. The feedback loop remains incomplete: limited secondary liquidity discourages exits and reinvestment, while limited exit velocity suppresses the asset base necessary to attract secondary specialists.
The primary constraint is insufficient deal supply and buyer concentration. Jeff Schlapinski, GPCA's managing director of research, noted that only "a few local funds are active in this space" across Africa. This scarcity reflects two interconnected problems: the dominance of development finance institutions (DFIs) as capital providers to African private equity funds, and these institutions' historical reluctance to exit positions through secondary sales. The DFI model prioritizes long-term capital deployment for development impact rather than portfolio liquidity, creating structural illiquidity in the market.
International expansion by major secondary asset managers—including US firms Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, and Lexington Partners, alongside French manager Ardian, each of which raised tens of billions in dedicated secondary funds since 2021—has largely bypassed Africa. Richard Okello, co-founder of Sango Capital, an African private equity and venture capital investor, articulated the economic reality: "For players from other geographies to come buy secondaries from Africa, the transaction size has to make sense, which means you need lots of sellers willing to sell large chunks." Without sufficient high-volume sellers in any given vintage or sector, offshore capital allocators lack the deployment efficiency required to justify market entry and fund management infrastructure.
Market maturation requires accelerated private sector growth to generate the density of exit opportunities necessary to attract international secondaries capital. According to experts consulted by Semafor, increased formation of dedicated African secondary funds—currently sparse—depends on private equity asset growth creating sufficient inventory for secondary transactions. The feedback loop remains incomplete: limited secondary liquidity discourages exits and reinvestment, while limited exit velocity suppresses the asset base necessary to attract secondary specialists.
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