After a record-breaking year for secondaries volumes in 2025, with deals crossing the $200 billion threshold for the first time to reach $226 billion globally, the structural imbalance in today’s private equity market could promise something even more impressive to come.
The private equity secondaries market has a habit of turning necessity into infrastructure. What began as a way for investors to tidy up portfolios has, in the space of a few years, become an increasingly central route for liquidity, portfolio management, and dealmaking.
2025 marked a turning point for secondaries in the private markets. Transaction volumes reached $226bn, breaking through the $200bn threshold for the first time and eclipsing 2024’s previous record by more than 40%. Volumes in the first half of 2026 continued this upward trajectory, reaching a record $121bn, up from the $102bn seen in the same period in 2025.¹
That scale matters less for the bragging rights than for what it signals: secondaries are now large enough to be shaped by structural forces rather than cyclical panic.
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