SL Capital raises $428m secondaries fund
SL Capital, a private markets arm of Aberdeen Standard Investments, has raised $428 million for its third private equity secondaries fund, surpassing the target of $400 million.
The SL Capital Secondary Opportunities Fund III (SOF III) attracted 31 LP backers, including public and corporate pension schemes, multi-family offices and high-net worth individuals. About 60% of investors are based in the UK and 40% are based in North America.
Investments will focus on niche or less competitive areas of the secondary market where Aberdeen could leverage expertise and relationships in its existing private markets platform. It follows a $291 million final close for SOF II in 2015 and brings the SL’s total secondaries fundraising program to more than $900 million.
“Our secondaries program has progressed relatively quickly from a concept developed in partnership with clients wishing to access niche areas of the private equity secondaries market,” Patrick Knechtli, head of secondaries at SL, said in a statement. “We continue to see strong momentum in terms of deal flow, and with the new fund in place we are well positioned to address these attractive opportunities.”
Global secondaries program have demonstrated significant demand for private equity exposure. Secondary fundraising reached $27.5 billion in 2016, up from $21.6 billion the previous year.
Recent activity in this space includes closures of $2.8 billion and $4.8 billion for Partners Group and HarbourVest Partners, respectively, with both firms exceeding their targeted corpuses. In June, Hamilton Lane closed its latest global secondaries fund at $1.9 billion, marking its largest secondaries fundraise to date.
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