- ‘Discounts are starting to stabilize,’ CIO Puffer says
- PJT forecasts secondaries may hit record $145 billion in 2024
Smaller investors are beginning to test the secondary market for private equity holdings, providing greater stability to pricing, according to Alberta’s public pension manager.
“We’re starting to see the evolution of that market,” Marlene Puffer, chief investment officer at Alberta Investment Management Corp., said in an interview. “It’s not just sellers trying to take things off their books, and bottom feeders taking advantage of it. We’re starting to see a more balanced demand and supply in the secondary market.”
As a result, “discounts are starting to stabilize,” Puffer said.
The Alberta firm, known as Aimco, handles about C$169 billion ($125 billion) for a variety of public-sector accounts in the Canadian province. More than a third of that portfolio is in private markets, including infrastructure, real estate and private equity.
Aimco has been “quite pleased” with how the secondaries market is working for them, Puffer said, but declined to speak about specific transactions.
Investment bank PJT Partners expects that secondaries deal volume may reach $145 billion this year, which would represent an all-time high, according to a recent report. The first half of the year saw a 40% increase compared to the same period in 2023.
Large-Cap Credit
Meanwhile, Aimco continues to push deeper into private credit — “a real steady contributor to our performance, as we are able to invest in that asset class in a way that kind of transcends the cycle,” Puffer said.
Aimco is already active in middle-market private credit. Now it’s focusing on gettig into more larger-cap US deals, she said.
Overall, Aimco earned a 5.4% return in the first half of the year, led by gains in equities, the firm said in a statement Tuesday.
“Results are not too far below our benchmark. It’s been a challenging year,” Puffer said. “Our public markets are, generally speaking, above their benchmarks, while it’s the private assets that are lagging behind.”
Real estate continues to be a difficult sector, she said, though Aimco sees pockets of opportunity in areas such as multifamily residential and grocery-anchored retail properties. Data centers are also a bright spot.
But there’s more activity now in the office market, allowing the pension fund to trim some Canadian office exposure. “We’re able to make the portfolio adjustments,” she said. “There’s starting to be some some stabilization and some some transactions going on.”
Written by: Paula Sambo @Bloomberg
The post “Not Just ‘Bottom-Feeders’: Aimco Sees Boom in Private Equity Secondary Deals” first appeared on Bloomberg