Private Markets Community

Today's announcement confirms the strategic role of Secondaries in long-terms PE plans

EQT to buy Coller Capital for up to $3.7bn

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EQT to buy Coller Capital for up to $3.7bn Swedish investment group seeks foothold in private equity secondaries with acquisition View this on Ft >

 

EQT to combine with Coller Capital to enter secondaries, marking the next step in EQT's strategic evolution

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EQT to combine with Coller Capital to enter secondaries, marking the next step in EQT's strategic evolution · EQT to acquire Coller Capital, a leading global secondaries firm with nearly USD 50 billion in total assets under management[1] across institutional, private wealth and insurance-related capital · The combination advances EQT's ambition to build the most attractive private markets firm of scale, delivering industry-leading performance and solutions globally View this on Eqtgroup >

https://www.privateequityinternational.com/five-things-to-know-about-eqts-3-7bn-coller-acquisition/ 

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Federico Mennuni
Advisor
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I have mixed thoughts about whether it is a good thing and where it should lead our thoughts about further investment with Coller. Not that this is an immediate consideration. 

It's not the first secondaries platform that was swallowed by a large primaries manager, but there isn't a lot of precedent. The question is really whether they can manage the conflict of interest to avoid losing deal flow from other managers. 

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[Brendan][Smart][CFA & CA][Principal][BXR Advisory Partners LLP][Badur House | 40-44 Newman Street | London W1T 1QD][Direct line: +44 20 7317 5418][brendan.smart@bxrap.com][bxrgroup.com/bxr-advisory-partners]
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Indeed the question of conflict management is already a massive one for continuation vehicle even without this kind of vertical integration. Conflict management risk will be a huge redflag for any LP and I am sure scrutiny will be substantial, especially because the external secondary investor is supposed to be the one guarantee of "independent" pricing for the assets. 

Having said that CVs are now looking to be fully legitimised as a default exit option as they reached 20% of total PE exits in 2025 (link 1) which is something investors cannot ignore. Expect more litigation to come up of these setup, some are already in the news (Link 2). 

Link1: https://www.privateequitywire.co.uk/continuation-vehicles-to-account-for-one-fifth-of-pe-exits-in-2025/

Link2: https://www.ft.com/content/cb8cc88b-dd51-4221-9a10-8a5814845365 

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Federico Mennuni
Advisor
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Original Message:
Sent: 23-01-2026 14:27
From: Brendan James Smart
Subject: Secondaries - EQT to buy Coller Capital for ~$4bn

I have mixed thoughts about whether it is a good thing and where it should lead our thoughts about further investment with Coller. Not that this is an immediate consideration. 

It's not the first secondaries platform that was swallowed by a large primaries manager, but there isn't a lot of precedent. The question is really whether they can manage the conflict of interest to avoid losing deal flow from other managers. 

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[Brendan][Smart][CFA & CA][Principal][BXR Advisory Partners LLP][Badur House | 40-44 Newman Street | London W1T 1QD][Direct line: +44 20 7317 5418][brendan.smart@bxrap.com][bxrgroup.com/bxr-advisory-partners]
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What is also fascinating is the strategic rationale of EQT behind this. The article mentioned that "credit secondaries were a 'big growth opportunity' for Coller, making it a 'nice fit' ", yet "EQT did not have plans to re-enter the primary private credit market". EQT sold their credit business to Bridgepoint in 2020 as they did not see it as strategic for the firm, which is contrary to what other large managers are doing where they keep scaling their credit business. I wonder if the senior management of EQT would have made the same choice seeing the exponential growth of primary private credit market in the past 5 years. Thoughts?

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Yue Wu
Associate, Private Credit
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It is a very interesting point indeed.  The secondary for credit has been extrimely active lately as per today's FT article (link 1) but at the same time investors are redeeming aggressively (link 2). Inflows have so far reportedly exceeded the outflows but if things change with rates easing there might be increasing distress at funds level. 

EQT exit was likely too early as it missed the peak, but re-entering via secondaries might be a way to capitalise on distressed sale from cash pressed funds and re-enter at more attractive valuation than anything they could ever find in primary market under current conditions.

Links:

1. Private credit firms sell debt to themselves at record rate

2. Private credit investors pull $7bn from Wall Street's biggest funds

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Federico Mennuni
Advisor
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Original Message:
Sent: 24-01-2026 13:52
From: Yue Wu
Subject: Secondaries - EQT to buy Coller Capital for ~$4bn

What is also fascinating is the strategic rationale of EQT behind this. The article mentioned that "credit secondaries were a 'big growth opportunity' for Coller, making it a 'nice fit' ", yet "EQT did not have plans to re-enter the primary private credit market". EQT sold their credit business to Bridgepoint in 2020 as they did not see it as strategic for the firm, which is contrary to what other large managers are doing where they keep scaling their credit business. I wonder if the senior management of EQT would have made the same choice seeing the exponential growth of primary private credit market in the past 5 years. Thoughts?

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Yue Wu
Associate, Private Credit
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