The market is gearing up for a flurry of secondaries investing in 2021 with an estimated $61bn deployment target, according to a recent report published by secondaries advisory firm Cebile Capital. Despite the expectation of intensified activity in the second half of 2020, large amounts of dry powder earmarked for deployment remained unallocated, resulting in unmet investment targets. 

As of November 2020, there was still an estimated $18bn's worth of 2020 capital earmarked for secondaries outstanding, according to the report. Total transacted volume was expected to come in at around $39bn once full year numbers are out – roughly half of the transacted volume recorded in 2019. Most of the dry powder is concentrated among the largest players; investors with $1bn or more of available capital represent just 11% of buyers by total of number of investors but represent 61% of the capital pool, according to the Cebile report.

"Looking back to last year, everything froze in the second quarter," says Sunaina Sinha, managing partner at Cebile Capital, "so the market lost a whole quarter of deployment, which investors will want to make up for in 2021.

Denise Ko Genovese Associate Editor Unquote

Denise joined Unquote in June 2016 to spearhead our GP and LP profiling effort. She now focusses predominantly on the secondaries market and features. She is a seasoned moderator at Acuris events and a regular Unquote podcast guest and interviewer. Prior to this, she spent almost nine years at Unquote’s sister publication Debtwire as Mid-Market Editor setting up the product in 2012 after five years covering leveraged loans and the restructuring market. Denise graduated from Edinburgh University with a degree in History and also has a master's from the Victoria & Albert Museum.