The Thinning Buyer Base
Why Fifteen Firms Will Set Asian Secondary Pricing in 2026
Saint Clair Capital · Ground Truth | January 2026
Fifteen firms won 71% of last year’s global secondary volume. Campbell Lutyens published the figure on 27 January in its 2025 Flash Report. It is the most consequential number the Asian secondary market will need to absorb in 2026, and it arrived two weeks after EQT’s combination with Coller Capital — USD 3.2 billion in EQT shares plus up to USD 500 million contingent — compressed the base further.
For Korean and Japanese GPs preparing continuation vehicles or LP-led transactions this year, the implication is immediate. The buyer universe facing Asian sell-side supply in 2026 is a consolidating cohort of global platforms, each running selective regional mandates, increasingly joined on the buy side by a subsidised Korean cohort that operates under its own rules. What looks from the outside like a market is, at the level where deals actually clear, a bilateral negotiation.
The number
Campbell Lutyens’ 2025 Flash Report, published on 27 January 2026, puts last year’s global secondary volume at USD 225 billion and reports that fifteen firms executed 71% of it. The identities are not disclosed, but the cohort is broadly visible from league-table data: Blackstone Strategic Partners, Ardian, Lexington, HarbourVest, Pantheon, Hamilton Lane, Brookfield Secondaries, Goldman Sachs AIMS (Alternative Investments & Manager Selection), Ares, Apollo S3 (Sponsor & Secondary Solutions), Carlyle, Glendower Capital (CVC), LGT Capital Partners, PineBridge, and the newly combined EQT-Coller platform.
71% is a concentration ratio. Private secondary processes involve multiple bidders; the fifteen-firm figure measures who wins volume, not who quotes. The pattern, sustained across two successive years of Campbell Lutyens data, tells us something structural. The Asian secondary market that counts in 2026 is the market these firms choose to enter.
The consolidation
On 22 January, EQT announced that it would acquire Coller Capital for USD 3.2 billion in EQT shares plus up to USD 500 million contingent, bringing combined AUM to USD 50 billion at close. The deal is explicit about Asia: EQT has stated its intent to accelerate Asian secondary deployment through Coller’s regional infrastructure. A firm that was not on the buyer list for Asian LP-led processes a year ago will be setting prices for them by the end of 2026.
EQT-Coller is the latest platform absorption in a sequence. Ares acquired Landmark in 2021. Brookfield built its secondaries arm from scratch and has scaled aggressively since 2023. Blackstone’s Strategic Partners has quietly added Asian underwriting capacity over three years. The consolidation is a pattern. What changed in January is that the pattern is now disclosed against a fresh concentration number.
The effect on Asian supply is concrete. Fewer platforms compete for each transaction. Those that do compete do so from larger balance sheets, with broader regional mandates and longer lookbacks to their next fundraise. That combination — balance-sheet depth and strategic patience — sets the tone of negotiation.
Repeat buyers
The concentration shows up as a weekly fact. A single week of 2026 transactions, spanning North America, Asia and the Gulf, produced a buy-side universe of roughly six names.
On 20 January, Ares Management and Pantheon Ventures entered BlackRock’s APAC Credit Opportunities Fund II through a hybrid extension-plus-secondary, acquiring Arch Capital’s stake during an investment-period extension. The same day, Crescent Capital closed a USD 3.2 billion private credit continuation vehicle led by Pantheon, with Allianz as co-lead and Hamilton Lane, Dawson Partners, Ares Credit Secondaries and Antares Capital participating. Three days later, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, advised by Freshfields, anchored CDH Investments’ multi-asset continuation vehicle at approximately USD 500 million against USD 770 million NAV, an anchor discount of around 36%.
The composition is telling. Ares appears in two transactions; Pantheon in two; Hamilton Lane in one major CV. The signal sits in the repetition: the universe of credible buyers at the top of the GP-led market, across a single week of transactions spanning North America, Asia and the Gulf, consists of roughly six names.
Campbell Lutyens’ aggregate figure names who shows up.
The Korean asymmetry
The concentration thesis weakens at one specific edge of the Asian market: the Korean domestic cohort.
In January the Ministry of SMEs and Startups confirmed a KRW 200 billion secondary fund programme with a 10% mandatory LP-stake acquisition rule. On 26 January, the National Pension Service standing committee formalised secondaries as a dedicated alternatives allocation. On 23 January, the Korea Venture Investment Corporation quadrupled its secondary carve-out for 2026. Dealsite’s “Season of the Secondary Fund” coverage has documented KRW 5.9 trillion of Korean venture funds reaching maturity this year, with Shinhan Venture Investment the dominant domestic specialist, running four vehicles.
For Korean domestic LP stakes specifically, the effective buyer base is substantially broader than the Campbell Lutyens figure implies. Subsidised Korean capital, with mandated clearance obligations and a defined policy horizon, operates outside the fifteen-firm cohort. It runs in parallel to the global platforms, on its own clearance rules.
Japan is a separate case. The ADIA/CDH template, a single sovereign anchor acquiring a multi-asset continuation vehicle at a disclosed discount, is the pattern to watch for Japanese GP-led activity in Q2 and Q3. Morrison Foerster and Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer both flag Japan as the most likely source of H1 disclosed Asian GP-led CVs. If the pattern holds, Japanese processes will be priced by one or two global platform buyers negotiating against a single seller position, not through competitive auction.
The pricing band
Two numbers frame the 2026 Asian pricing band: Campbell Lutyens’ 13.9% global LP-led average, and the approximate 36% anchor discount disclosed on the CDH continuation vehicle. The distance between them is the operating range within which 2026 Asian processes will clear, conditional on asset quality, jurisdiction and transaction structure.
The implication for negotiation is specific. When the buyer side is concentrated at fifteen firms, pricing moves with buyer strategic priorities more than seller distress. Korean and Japanese GPs entering process this year will find that clearance depends less on their home tax regime or the condition of their underlying portfolios than on whether the process fits one of the mandates the global platforms are actively pursuing. If it fits, discount compresses. If it does not, the process will be re-pitched to the Korean subsidised cohort, or it will not clear at all.
What it means
For buyers, the implication of concentration is mandate discipline. Disciplined Asian deployment in 2026 requires either membership of the platform cohort or a specialist mandate scoped narrowly enough to avoid competing with the platforms for their preferred assets. The middle ground, mid-sized generalist Asian secondary teams without platform backing, is the hardest position to operate from this year.
For sellers, the implication is counterparty scoping. The practical buyer universe for a non-subsidised Asian process in 2026 is roughly fifteen firms globally. Process design should reflect that. A fully competitive auction structured against that universe produces predictable outcomes: a short list of three to five platform bidders, of which one or two submit priced terms. A bilateral negotiation with an anchor buyer, structured from the outset, often clears faster and at comparable discounts. The choice between auction and bilateral is less a tactical decision than a strategic one that should be made before advisers are engaged.
The Korean domestic cohort is the exception and should be treated as such. For Korean-domestic LP stakes or for venture portfolios reaching maturity inside the subsidised programmes’ purchase window, the buyer universe looks different, the clearance timeline is regulatory rather than discretionary, and the pricing convention is not yet established. The first disclosed Korean clearances through H1 and H2 will tell the market where the subsidised buyer cohort settles relative to the global platform band.
The buyer base is thinning. Sellers who calibrate to the fifteen-firm reality and identify, before process launch, which segment of the buyer universe their asset fits will clear faster and with narrower spread. Those who approach the 2026 Asian market as if it still looks like 2022 — a broad, competitive, globally contested field — will find a market that has reshaped itself.
Saint Clair Market Intelligence · Ground Truth: Secondaries · Article 1 of the 2026 series.
Sources
Campbell Lutyens, 2025 Secondaries Market Flash Report (27 January 2026)
EQT, EQT to combine with Coller Capital (22 January 2026)
Bloomberg, BlackRock APAC credit fund extension (20 January 2026)
Crescent Capital / Secondaries Investor, USD 3.2bn private credit CV close (20 January 2026)
Freshfields / ION Analytics, CDH six-asset CV, ADIA anchor (23 January 2026)
Korea Herald, NPS secondaries standing allocation (26 January 2026)
KoreaTechDesk, KVIC 2026 secondary carve-out (23 January 2026)
Dealsite, Season of the Secondary Fund (January 2026)
Morrison Foerster, Japan poised for GP-led secondary uptick (January 2026)
Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, Asia private capital Q4 2025 data (Q1 2026)
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. All decisions should be made based on independent research and consultation with qualified advisors.
About Saint Clair: Saint Clair designs and builds cross-border capital infrastructure between Europe and Asia — proposing access where access is scarce, and creating structure where structure is absent. Since 2016.