Argentem Creek Partners (ACP), an emerging markets specialist investment firm, has partnered with Emerge9, a Miami, FL-based alternative asset platform, to launch a strategic joint venture focused on connecting non-institutional investors to General Partner (GP)- led private equity (PE) investments. The joint venture will combine Emerge9’s origination and custom fund solutions with ACP’s global relationships and presence across the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia.
GP-led secondary deals represent a major segment of the PE secondary market. And given constrained M&A and IPO markets, a growing number of GP’s are providing liquidity to their respective LP’s by transferring prized assets into so-called continuation vehicles, funded by a new set of investors.
In these transactions – where GP’s normally roll most (if not all) of their carried interest into the continuation vehicle – investors benefit from a strong alignment of interests and visibility into a given asset’s past performance under the GP’s stewardship.
As part of the joint venture, the firms will collaborate on a set of initiatives aimed at broadening non-institutional investor access to private equity.
KEY QUOTES:
“Our research shows that the PE secondary market grew from $7bn in 2015 transaction volume to $51bn in 2023. Despite strong growth, the GP-led market remains severely undercapitalized, as reflected by a capital overhang ratio (deal volume vs dry powder) of 1.3x expected for 2024 versus 2.0x in 2022.”
- John Abbott, CEO and co-founder of Emerge9
“The combination of high-quality transactions and a supply/demand imbalance favoring investors makes the GP-led market particularly attractive. This joint venture complements our expertise and strategy to explore the market opportunity in PE secondaries. At the same time, our partnership with Emerge9 allows us to execute this strategy in a much more timely, efficient manner.”
- Daniel Chapman, ACP’s CEO and Founder
“As Emerge9 seeks to democratize private equity through innovative technology tools, including our new AI Assistant, we believe that this joint venture positions us to accelerate our growth, particularly as we develop our distribution network in the Middle East, Europe and Latin America.”
- John Abbott
