CVC Capital Partners has raised $10 billion for its latest secondaries fund, marking the biggest fundraising effort in the firm’s history for the strategy and highlighting the rapidly expanding role of secondary investments in global private markets. The fundraising comes as investors increasingly seek liquidity from private-equity portfolios that have remained locked up for longer than expected.
CVC Secondary Opportunities Fund VI, known as SOF VI, surpassed its original $7 billion target during its fundraising process. The fund had already reached $9.3 billion by the end of June 2026, making it more than 60% larger than its predecessor, SOF V, which raised $5.8 billion. CVC said at the time that it expected to complete the final close later in the year.
The fund’s expansion reflects strong institutional demand for secondaries. These transactions allow investors to sell existing interests in private-equity funds before those funds naturally mature. Buyers acquire portfolios of established investments, often at negotiated prices below reported net asset values, while sellers receive liquidity and can redirect capital toward new opportunities.
Secondaries have become particularly important because private-equity firms are holding assets for longer periods. Slower mergers and acquisitions activity, challenging financing conditions and weaker public-market exit opportunities have made it harder for buyout managers to sell companies and return cash to investors. That has created a growing gap between the capital investors have committed and the money they receive back.
CVC’s secondaries platform operates through both LP-led and GP-led transactions. In LP-led deals, an investor sells its existing fund interests to a secondary buyer. In GP-led transactions, private-equity managers create customized liquidity solutions that allow existing investors to exit while giving the manager additional time to develop attractive portfolio companies.
The scale of CVC’s operation has grown substantially since the firm acquired Glendower Capital. The business, which was renamed CVC Secondary Partners, has built a global platform focused on private-equity and credit secondaries. CVC says the team has screened roughly $1 trillion of potential secondary transactions and completed more than 200 transactions involving over 1,800 fund interests managed by more than 500 investment managers. It has also completed more than 70 bespoke continuation vehicles.
The broader secondary market has been expanding rapidly. CVC reported that global secondary transaction volumes reached nearly $226 billion in 2025, up substantially from about $160 billion in 2024. During 2025, CVC deployed €2.9 billion across a combination of LP-led and GP-led transactions. The firm says the market has grown at roughly 20% annually since 2016, supported by the expansion of private equity and increasing demand for portfolio management and liquidity solutions.
For investors, secondary funds can offer several advantages compared with traditional private-equity commitments. Because the underlying companies and funds are already established, buyers have more information about asset performance and can potentially reduce the uncertainty associated with investing in newly launched funds. Mature portfolios may also provide faster distributions and reduce the traditional “J-curve” effect associated with private-equity investing.
CVC is also broadening its presence beyond traditional private-equity secondaries. The firm launched a dedicated credit-secondaries platform in 2025 and has indicated plans to expand further into infrastructure secondaries. Its strategy is designed to take advantage of growing liquidity needs across private credit and infrastructure markets as these asset classes continue to expand.
The $10 billion fundraise also fits into CVC’s broader growth trajectory. In the first half of 2026, the firm reported €153 billion in fee-paying assets under management, up 9% from a year earlier. Credit, secondaries and infrastructure together grew 19%, demonstrating the increasing importance of CVC’s non-traditional private-equity businesses.
CVC’s latest fundraising therefore represents more than a record for one investment vehicle. It signals how secondaries have evolved from a specialized liquidity market into a central component of private-market investing. As private-equity portfolios continue to mature and investors demand greater flexibility, funds with substantial capital and deep transaction experience are likely to become increasingly important.
With $10 billion available for new opportunities, CVC now has significant firepower to purchase mature private-market assets, support managers seeking continuation solutions and provide liquidity to investors looking to rebalance their portfolios.
