EMK has closed the continuation fund for VDK, its Dutch installation group, at its €1.25 billion hard cap, co-led by LGT and Coller EQT. Investors in its first fund rolled more than 40% of their capital. Meanwhile, EQT reported Coller EQT's first quarter on Thursday, with $38 billion of fee-paying assets. In addition, the chiefs of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley said this week that sponsors hold companies at marks the market will not pay.

The tape

• DEAL  Meritex, a Minneapolis landlord, moved 18 Atlanta warehouses into a continuation vehicle with Goldman Sachs' Vintage Strategies on Thursday, keeping control, terms undisclosed.
• FUND  M&G Real Estate is exploring a debut real estate secondaries fund of about €500 million for Europe and Asia, Green Street News reported Wednesday.
• LP  Saba's Boaz Weinstein joined SDCL's board on Thursday with 84% of votes, Saba holding 29.1% of the energy trust, as flagged on 15 October.
• PEOPLE  Nasdaq Private Market completed its purchase of Nasdaq Fund Secondaries on Thursday and named Marshall Widom, a PJT director, head of fund secondaries from November.
• DATA  Stanger, whose BDC count ran here on 7 October, puts credit interval fund redemptions at $9.6 billion through August, 79% of the category's sales.
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EMK's investors rolled 40% into VDK's new fund

EMK has closed the continuation fund for VDK Groep at its hard cap of €1.25 billion, the London firm said on Thursday. The fund was co-led by LGT Capital Partners and Coller EQT, and EMK's own third fund invested beside them. The investors in EMK's first fund could sell or keep their exposure to VDK on the same terms. Investors holding more than 40% of that fund's capital chose to roll into the new vehicle. Once the investors who sold and then bought back in through the new fund are counted, their share is more than 75%, the release says.

EMK is the London buyout firm founded by Edmund Lazarus and Mark Joseph, and it has owned VDK since November 2020. VDK was then a group of installation and maintenance companies in the north-east of the Netherlands, bought from its founder, who reinvested. Since then the company has made 103 acquisitions, the release says. Its EBITDA has grown from about €5 million to about €319 million on a pro forma basis. The largest of those acquisitions came in November 2025, when VDK bought Builtech, a Berlin group of 50 companies. The purchase took VDK past €2 billion of turnover.

The sale was first reported on 10 September, as read here on 11 September. Secondaries Investor wrote then that EMK was seeking €1 billion to €1.2 billion of new equity for a company in its debut fund. That debut fund closed at £575 million in May 2017. So the new vehicle is about twice the size of the fund that held the company. The new vehicle's money pays for VDK's acquisition pipeline and its expansion across Europe, both releases say. VDK itself was held across two of EMK's funds, Secondaries Investor reported on Thursday. Neither release gives the price against the first fund's mark.

EMK's investors rolled far more than the market's average. Their 40% compares with an average of 14% for GP-led deals in the first half, by Jefferies' count. It also compares with under 5% at Gainline's Core Health & Fitness vehicle in September, as read here on 9 September. The VDK vehicle also comes four months after Coller EQT bought Texas Teachers' $1 billion portfolio, as read here on 13 October. Martin Fleischer, a partner at Coller EQT, said in its release that the vehicle "highlights the role the secondaries market can play in providing existing investors with a liquidity option".

EMK's investors rolled far more than the market's average

Share of the selling fund's capital that rolled, four vehicles of 2026

Source: EMK Capital, 15 October 2026; Campbell Lutyens, 26 March 2026; Jefferies, H1 2026 Global Secondary Market Review, p.9; Secondaries Investor, 9 September 2026.

Insurers gave Coller EQT $2.7bn in one quarter

Coller EQT raised $2.7 billion from insurers through structured products in the third quarter, EQT said on Thursday in its first quarterly report with Coller inside. EQT is the Stockholm-listed manager that completed its purchase of Coller Capital, the London secondaries house, at the end of August. Coller brought €34 billion of fee-paying assets and 323 employees into the group. The group now reports Secondaries as a fourth segment beside Private Capital, Infrastructure and Real Estate.

The report counts the fee base two ways. On Coller's own definition, the fee base stood at $38 billion at the end of September. On EQT's definition, the figure is $33 billion, because EQT reflects a fund's fee step-down in the capital base rather than in the rate. EQT will use its own basis from the fourth quarter, and the change "does not impact fund economics or outlook", the report says.

Coller EQT's first quarter inside EQT

$bn, at 30 September 2026

The funds come next. The first of those funds, CIP IX, was 75% to 80% invested on 15 October. Coller EQT plans to launch its successor CIP X early next year. Its third credit secondaries fund, CCO III, is now raising. That fund charges fees on invested capital, so it adds nothing to the fee base until it invests.

The call added two facts. First, EQT's executives said the firm is "fully focused" on building an infrastructure secondaries business, Secondaries Investor reported, and Coller never ran that strategy. Second, management put insurers at close to 25% of Coller EQT's client commitments, against less than 10% for EQT as a whole, Secondary Scoop reports. Coller's next count comes with EQT's year-end report in January, on the new basis.

Bank chiefs say sponsors are stuck on marks

The chief executives of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both told analysts this week that sponsors hold companies at marks the market will not pay. First, David Solomon said on Goldman's call on Tuesday that sponsors "have been slow to monetize and turn over the capital portfolios from the 2020 and 2021 vintages". He said the bigger constraint is that "a lot of this stuff is still marked higher than where it can be monetized in the market". Sponsors "have tools such as continuation funds and other vehicles to extend life of funds", he added.

Second, Ted Pick said the same on Morgan Stanley's call on Wednesday, when an analyst asked why the backlog of sponsor mandates has been a waiting game for two years. "There are some sponsors in the universe that are stuck on marks", he said. He listed "a ton of engineering continuation funds" among what sponsors have done instead of selling.

Morgan Stanley's own funds show such a mark in the quarter's numbers. Its finance chief Sharon Yeshaya told the same call: "Carry reversal primarily related to 2 investments in a private fund muted overall results."

Secondary buyers already price that gap. Jefferies put the price of buyout fund portfolios at 91% of net asset value in the first half and all strategies at 87%, in its July review. Meanwhile, PitchBook's note of Thursday says which sector sits most in continuation vehicles. IT took 24.6% of global GP-led exit value in 2025 against 10.6% in 2023. Single-asset IT vehicles grew from $1.9 billion to $7.3 billion over those two years. The next read on such vehicles' prices comes on 22 October, at Blackstone's third-quarter call. Then the advisors' full-year reviews land in January.

Source: Jefferies, H1 2026 Global Secondary Market Review, Fig. 2, p.5, July 2026.

Seen before the press

Ramirez Asset Management filed on Thursday for Ramirez Credit Opportunities CV I. Ramirez is a New York fixed-income manager run by Samuel Ramirez Jr. Its filing names Evercore as placement agent, an open-ended size and nothing raised yet. In October 2024 Ramirez bought Avenue Capital's private credit opportunities team and its five funds, about $500 million of commitments. Four of those five funds were already paying out when that deal closed. So the vehicle is most probably a home for the loans of the former Avenue funds and a way out for their investors. But Ramirez may simply be raising a new fund in the series under a name that reads otherwise.

On the radar

• Thursday 22 October, 9am, New York. Blackstone holds its third-quarter call, the first since it shelved Project Eclipse on 24 September. The same day HarbourVest Global Private Equity publishes its half-year results to 31 July, with Saba Capital at 11.1% of its shares.
• Wednesday 21 October, 1pm, then Friday 23 October, 1pm, Edinburgh. Proxies are due on Wednesday for Baillie Gifford US Growth Trust's annual meeting on Friday, where Saba Capital asks for three board seats. Glass Lewis, ISS and PIRC all recommend a vote against.
• Tuesday 17 and Wednesday 18 November, New York. SuperReturn Secondaries North America meets at Convene on Madison Avenue, with Coller, HarbourVest, Adams Street, Kline Hill and New York State Common on stage. The Secondary Brief has negotiated 15% off for its readers: book with the discount link, or use the VIP code FKR3675SECBRIEF.
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