Goldman Sachs and Evercore are pitching continuation vehicles that would hold a company for 10 to 15 years, Bloomberg reported on Monday. The same pitch comes from Jefferies, Raymond James and Lazard. Jefferies also told shareholders on Monday that it advises on over 20% of continuation vehicles. Meanwhile, Secondaries Investor counted $80.5 billion raised by secondaries funds in nine months, the third quarter 18% below 2025's. So the advisors sell the next product while the buyers' new money slows.

The tape

• DEAL  EnCap closed a $3.5 billion continuation vehicle for its Permian royalty companies on Monday, anchored by Melange Capital Partners, with Evercore advising.
• DEAL  Velliv, the Danish pension provider, sold its whole stakes in Apax Europe VI and VII to Kline Hill, notices of Monday show, price not published.
• LP  Partners Group moved 16 more of its gated evergreen's UK partnerships, its own Access vehicles, into GVD Access, which took four buyout funds this month.
• PEOPLE  Montana Capital Partners, the PGIM-owned secondaries house, has set up a team to invest in primary funds, New Private Markets reported on Tuesday.
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Advisors want continuation vehicles to last 15 years

The banks that sell continuation vehicles want the next generation to hold a company for as long as a sponsor wants to own it. Goldman Sachs and Evercore are exploring evergreen continuation vehicles that could hold a company for 10 to 15 years, Bloomberg reported on Monday. The same vehicles are being discussed by Jefferies, Raymond James and Lazard with several large private equity managers and institutional investors, the report says. The vehicles they describe would extend a structure that typically lives five years, with two one-year extensions, and they would carry unfunded capital to pay for growth at the company.

The difference for a buyer is where its cash comes from. A buyer in a five-year vehicle is paid when the company is sold, so it underwrites its price to that sale. In a 15-year vehicle there is no sale to wait for. So the bankers are discussing three ways out, Bloomberg says: distributing assets, bringing in new investors, and tender offers. They are also considering letting an investor cash out against a commitment to the sponsor's next fund. For instance, a buyer that pays $100 million for a stake and expects to double its money in five years needs a sale at about $200 million in 2031. The same buyer in a 15-year vehicle gets its $200 million in 2031 only if another investor buys it out at the sponsor's mark.

The vehicles the banks are extending already take most of the market. Continuation vehicles made up just under half of the $121 billion of secondary deals completed in the first half, by Evercore's count of 15 July. The same vehicles were 89% of GP-led volume by Jefferies' count of 14 July. Then, on 13 October, Goldman's chief executive David Solomon described the clients' problem on his bank's call. He said that "a lot of this stuff is still marked higher than where it can be monetized in the market". He added that sponsors "have tools such as continuation funds and other vehicles to extend life of funds".

No sponsor is named, nothing is signed, and the bankers themselves call the market early. The market is at an early stage, Raymond James' head of private capital advisory Sunaina Sinha Haldea told Bloomberg. Her counterpart at Lazard, Holcombe Green, expects each structure to be tailored to its deal. Their answers leave two questions open. The first question concerns the carried interest, which a five-year vehicle pays at the sale. The second concerns the price at which an investor leaves a vehicle that never sells. A vehicle that pays its investors through tender offers works like the evergreen funds already in the market, and those pay at a cap. Partners Group's gated fund paid out 5% of its assets in the second quarter when investors asked back 9.8%.

Jefferies claims a fifth of CV mandates

Jefferies has put a share of the continuation vehicle market in front of its shareholders, and the number is its own. At its investor day in New York on Monday the bank filed a deck that gives it a "CV market share" of "20%+" for 2025 and 2026 to date. The share sits on the slide for its large-cap private equity M&A business, beside a third place in sponsor M&A above $1 billion. Its endnote reads "Internal estimate", where every other ranking on the page cites Dealogic.

Jefferies puts its share of continuation vehicle mandates above 20%, on an estimate no rival matches in print

Slide 29 of its investor-day presentation, 19 October 2026, on the bank's own estimate

Source: Jefferies, 2026 Investor Meeting presentation, slide 29 and the endnote on slide 62, filed with the SEC on 19 October 2026.

The bank's own market count gives the number a scale. Its July review put GP-led volume at $62 billion in the first half and continuation vehicles at 89% of it, about $55 billion. A fifth of that is about $11 billion of continuation vehicles advised in six months. The same review says the bank's team "advised institutional investors and general partners on $30 billion of private equity secondary transaction volume in H1 2026". That figure covers LP-led and GP-led work together, so the claim fits inside the bank's published numbers.

Jefferies' claim is about $11 billion of the $55 billion of continuation vehicles it counted in the half

H1 2026, $bn, from Jefferies' own July review and its investor-day slide

Source: Jefferies, H1 2026 Global Secondary Market Review, p.1 and Fig. 8, p.8, July 2026; the 20% share from slide 29 of its investor-day presentation, 19 October 2026. The $11 billion is the letter's arithmetic.

The slide does not say whether the share counts deals or dollars, sell-side mandates only or buy-side work too, or closed deals or signed ones. No rival publishes its share on the same basis either. One rival, Evercore, calls its unit "the world's leading secondaries advisory business" in its own review, without giving a share. The same bank made Nigel Dawn, who built that unit, co-president on Sunday.

Jefferies has a reason to say it now. Its July review counts 82 of the 100 largest sponsors as users of a continuation vehicle, and it puts GP-led deals at 14% of sponsor exits in the first half. So a bank built on selling companies for sponsors now sells them the other exit too. Its rival Evercore reports its third quarter on Wednesday 28 October at 8am New York time, its first call since the reshuffle, and may give a figure of its own. Until then the endnote under Jefferies' figure reads, in full, "Internal estimate".

Buyers raised a third less in nine months

The buyers' new money is arriving more slowly than last year. Their funds held final closes on $80.5 billion in the first nine months of 2026, Secondaries Investor counted on Monday. Of those nine months, the third quarter was 18% below the third quarter of 2025. By the same point of 2025 the strategy had already passed $118 billion, more than 2023's whole year, by the same publication's count. The same count put 2025's full year at nearly $166 billion, 48% above the previous record.

Buyers raised at least a third less in nine months than a year earlier

Capital raised by secondaries funds through final closes since 1 January of each year, Secondaries Investor's count, $bn

The calendar of flagships explains most of the gap. Those flagships closed in 2025, among them Ardian's ninth secondaries fund at $30 billion in January, the largest secondaries fund ever raised. By contrast, the largest closes of 2026 so far are CVC's sixth fund at $10 billion in September and Clipway's debut at $6.4 billion in July. The funds that would match 2025's are still open. One of them, Blackstone's Strategic Partners X, had $14 billion of a $22.5 billion target in July, and the unit was still buying UK fund stakes at the quarter-end. In addition, AlpInvest's ninth was filed in September with nothing raised yet.

Secondaries Investor counts final closes only, so a fund still raising adds nothing until it closes. Money also arrives outside the funds it counts. For instance, Coller EQT took $2.7 billion from insurers' structured products in the third quarter, as EQT reported on 15 October.

Whether 2026 catches up depends on the closes before December. If Blackstone closes Strategic Partners X at its target, the year adds $22.5 billion in one line. However, Evercore's July review expected $154 billion to be raised in the second half, almost twice what the first nine months produced.

On the radar

• Tuesday 20 October, after the close, then Thursday 22 October, New York. SpaceX posts its third-quarter results on Tuesday, with a webcast at 4.30pm. Two trading days later, up to 1.3 billion shares, 28% of the lock-up and its largest tranche, become sellable under page 259 of its prospectus.
• Thursday 22 October, 9am, New York, and London. 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, the first since Saba Capital reached 11.1% of its shares.
• Friday 23 October, 1pm, London. Baillie Gifford US Growth Trust holds its annual meeting, where Saba Capital asks for three board seats against the advice of Glass Lewis, ISS and PIRC. Proxies are due on Wednesday at 1pm. The same day Cox Capital's offer for Blue Owl Credit Income shares opens at $7.31, 20% below the 31 August value.
• 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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