Molten Ventures has sold a further £50 million of Revolut at 21 times its cost, the morning after Revolut's investors completed a secondary sale valuing the bank at $115 billion. Meanwhile, Marsh completed its purchase of the Madrid secondaries manager AltamarCAM and KeyBanc agreed to buy Atlantic-Pacific Capital, a placement agent with a secondaries desk. In addition, Virginia's pension, 15 points behind its private equity benchmark, will put more money into deals with no fee.

The tape

• DEAL  AE Industrial Partners raised $851.3 million from 38 investors for the Blue Raven vehicle it closed this week, its Form D of Wednesday shows.
• FUND  CVC asked the SEC on Wednesday for two orders for CVC-PSEC Private Secondaries Fund, the evergreen it registered in August.
• FUND  Clearlake launched a wealth unit and an interval fund run with Pathway for LP-led and GP-led secondaries, and got its co-investment order on Wednesday.
• FUND  Goldman Sachs filed a feeder for its wealth clients into AlpInvest Secondaries IX on Wednesday, from its 200 West Street address.
• FILING  Cubera, Storebrand's secondaries arm, registered Cubera International Secondary I on Wednesday, a fund of continuation vehicles with a Nordea feeder for Norwegian investors.
• PEOPLE  Freshfields hired Brett Bush from Debevoise as a New York partner for GP-led, LP-led and structured secondaries.
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Molten sells £50m more of Revolut at 21x

A venture trust listed in London has turned Revolut's new private price into cash, in tranches, and the latest tranche came the morning after Revolut's investors set that price. That trust is Molten Ventures, which said on Thursday it had sold a further £50 million of its Revolut holding, at the value it expects to carry at 30 September. Its Revolut sales now total about £180 million, 21 times what it invested, and Molten did not name the buyer.

That price is Revolut's own. Revolut's investors completed on Wednesday a secondary sale of existing shares that values the bank at $115 billion, tech.eu reported, with the company's confirmation. The buyers of those shares were led by Glade Brook Capital Partners with Coatue, Durable Capital Partners, T Rowe Price and Baillie Gifford. The sellers were existing employees and investors, so no new money went into the company. The company did not say how much stock was sold, TechCrunch reported, but its price is 53% above the $75 billion of the sale a year earlier.

For Molten, the sale continues a run that began in the spring. Its Revolut stake was worth £175 million at 31 March, about 11% of a gross portfolio of £1,525 million. From that stake Molten sold about £70 million between April and September, at an average of 19 times cost, its trading update of 26 October says. The rest was marked up to about £130 million at 30 September. Thursday's £50 million comes out of that £130 million, so about £80 million is left.

Molten has sold £120m of Revolut since March and keeps about £80m

Fair value of Molten Ventures' Revolut holding, £m, from its announcements of 26 October and 5 November 2026

Source: Molten Ventures, half-year trading update, 26 October 2026, and portfolio update, 5 November 2026. The value change and the amount left are the letter's arithmetic from the company's rounded figures.

Molten sells because its own shareholders ask for cash. The activist Saba Capital held 14.6% of Molten on 27 October, most of it through swaps, and Molten has bought back about £70 million of its shares since July 2024. Its chief executive Ben Wilkinson said the proceeds "strengthen our ability to recycle capital into new primary and secondary opportunities". Part of that recycling is a secondaries fund of Molten's own, on track for a first close by the end of March 2027, the trading update says.

Molten reports its half-year on 24 November, and Revolut plans its US bank for the first half of 2027 once its regulator gives final approval.

Marsh and KeyBanc buy their secondaries teams

Consultants and banks are buying secondaries businesses rather than building them, and Marsh and KeyBanc are the latest two. Marsh completed its purchase of AltamarCAM on Wednesday, its release on Business Wire says. The day before, KeyBanc Capital Markets agreed to buy Atlantic-Pacific Capital, a placement agent that also advises on secondaries. Both follow Lazard, which closed its purchase of Campbell Lutyens on Monday.

Marsh now owns a Madrid secondaries manager whose last two flagship funds closed above target. The fourth, ACP Secondaries 4, closed at €1.025 billion in January 2022 against €750 million sought. The fifth closed in February 2025 at close to €1.6 billion against €1.3 billion sought, and more than 40% of its investors were new to the firm. The sixth fund was launched in June 2025 with a €1.3 billion target, so it will be raised under the Marsh name.

AltamarCAM's last two secondaries funds closed 23% to 37% above target

Target and final size of ACP Secondaries 4 and 5, €bn

Source: AltamarCAM, final close of ACP Secondaries 4, 18 January 2022, and final close of ACP Secondaries 5, 18 February 2025.

Marsh owns Mercer, the investment consultant, and Mercer signed the deal in March. The deal brought €20 billion under management in secondaries, co-investments and evergreen vehicles for insurers and pension funds in Europe and Latin America. With it, Marsh's private markets assets reach $75 billion, counting committed but uncalled capital. Permira sold the 40% it bought in 2024 in the same transaction.

The consultant's reason is in its own words. Those words are Garvan McCarthy's, who runs alternatives at Marsh Investments and Retirement: success "increasingly depends on disciplined execution and solutions that support more mature private market programs". Investors with mature programs hold large books of old fund stakes, and those books are where LP-led supply comes from. But the release does not say how Marsh will separate the advice Mercer gives those investors from the bids its new team makes for their stakes. The same question applies to WTW, which agreed to buy FlowStone Partners, a secondaries specialist, in December.

KeyBanc's purchase is smaller and on the sell side. Its target, Atlantic-Pacific, was founded in 1995 and has more than 30 professionals, the release says. It has run more than 180 fundraisings worth over $123 billion, in fund placement, direct placement and secondary advisory. That advisory work is what KeyCorp wants. Randy Paine, who runs its institutional bank, said the deal positions Key for the continuation vehicle market, Banking Dive reported. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and it is expected to close in early 2027.

Virginia trails its PE benchmark by 15 points

Virginia's pension will put more of its private equity money into deals that carry no fee, because its funds have trailed their benchmark by 15 points over the past year. That money will follow the plan in the book of Wednesday's Investment Advisory Committee meeting. The plan has two lines, "Increase direct/fee advantaged investment allocation" and "Lean into conviction", with the commitment pace unchanged.

The Virginia Retirement System manages $136.3 billion, and its private equity book was worth $19.2 billion at 30 June. That book returned 5.2% in the year to June against 20.3% for its benchmark, a blend of listed equity indices plus a spread. Its three-year gap is 11.5 points, and over ten years the book is ahead, page 133 shows. The book's cash has come back more slowly than planned, and the staff list the reasons as "higher interest rates, buyer/seller valuation spread, AI uncertainty, tariffs, wars, etc.". Under the same heading they write "Premier assets are the most actionable", then "Continuation Vehicles".

Source: Virginia Retirement System, Investment Advisory Committee meeting book, 4 November 2026, page 133. Time-weighted returns, net of fees.

The fee-free deals are co-investments alongside the funds Virginia already backs. Virginia has made 102 of them since April 2013, for $2.8 billion of cost, with 31 of its managers. Such co-investments come "typically with no fees or carry", the book says, and Virginia expects to commit more than $750 million a year to them from now on. Together they are already 10.6% of the private equity book, ahead of any single manager, with GCM Grosvenor next at 7.6%.

Virginia has also committed to continuation vehicles three times since August. On 25 September it committed $50 million to CAP91 CV Sleeve, a fund for single-asset continuation vehicles of mid-market companies. CAP91 Partners is the Richmond firm of Harris Williams co-founder Hiter Harris, and it had filed for that fund the day before, with nothing raised. The second and third came earlier, both told on 18 September. In August Virginia committed $75 million to NorthSands Capital I, which leads single-asset vehicles, and put $43.2 million straight into Lime Rock Resources Fund III's continuation vehicle. All three sit on page 21 of the book, beside $625 million for ordinary buyout, growth and energy funds.

On the radar

• Thursday 5 November, 8:30am New York. Carlyle reports its third quarter, the quarter in which AlpInvest agreed to buy Oakley Capital Investments' fund stakes at 94.25% of value. The call gives what AlpInvest raised in the quarter.
• Friday 6 November, Seoul. Korea Venture Investment Corp opens applications for a ₩75 billion secondary compartment, ₩25 billion for each of three managers, until 13 November, Dealsite reported on 21 October. The managers are to be chosen by the end of the year, and each must form its fund within three months.
• Monday 9 November, 10am New York, then Luxembourg. KKR reports its third quarter, its first call since its credit continuation vehicle closed. The same week the shareholders of Partners Group Global Value SICAV vote on splitting the €6.6 billion gated fund in two, with about €5.2 billion going to a run-off fund.
• Monday 16 November, Guernsey. HarbourVest Global Private Equity's shareholders vote on its $400 million tender at 10% below net asset value, and the tender closes on 19 November. The trust paid for its last tender with a sale of fund stakes at 94% of value.
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