Ardian reported raising $30B for the ninth iteration of its secondaries platform, marking the largest global secondaries fundraise to date and a significant increase from the $19B raised by its 2020-vintage predecessor.
Ardian said the fundraise was oversubscribed and closed at its hard cap, attracting more than 465 investors in total from 44 countries across Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia. The fund’s investor base includes pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, financial institutions and high-net worth individuals.
According to Dakota data, the California State Teachers Retirement System ($250M), Pennsylvania State Employee Retirement System ($100M) and New York City Employees’ Retirement System ($69.2M) are among the institutional investors in the fund. Ardian also said it realized strong growth from private wealth investors, which accounted for 22% of the total equity raised, compared to 11% in the eighth-generation platform.
In a news release announcing the close, Mark Benedetti, co-head of secondaries at Ardian, said the fund is 50% deployed with an average deal size of $2B and its last two deals each surpassing $3B. Completion of the fundraise brings Ardian’s secondaries and primaries AUM to $97B. The firm manages $176B of total assets spanning private equity, real assets, and credit for more than 1,720 clients globally.
