Friday, September 11th, 2026
Credit secondaries volume went from about $6bn in 2023 to roughly $11bn in 2024 and is expected to top $18bn for 2025. Quality stakes change hands at 95 to 99 percent of net asset value. That is either evidence the marks are right, or evidence that only the defensible ones get offered.
An addition to a major index obliges a large and predictable set of buyers to act on a known date. That predictability is the whole opportunity, and the whole problem.
Corporate bond ETFs now supply much of the liquidity that dealer balance sheets used to. The mechanism works well and has been tested mainly in conditions that were not the hard case.
Vehicles offering private-market exposure with periodic liquidity have gathered enormous sums from investors who have never needed to leave. The gate is the product, and most holders have not read it.
Private funds promised distributions on a timetable that stopped being met. The secondary market has grown from a distressed corner into the mechanism by which investors get money back at all.
Sell-side coverage of companies below a billion dollars has thinned to almost nothing. The consequence is not merely obscurity — it is a measurable discount that persists regardless of what the business does.