French alternative asset manager Ardian has raised US$30 billion for its ninth-generation secondaries platform, making it the largest secondaries fundraise globally to date and, it says, cementing its leadership of the secondaries market.

The fundraise represents a significant increase over the US$19 billion raised for the investment house’s eighth-generation platform in 2020 and brings its secondaries and primaries assets under management to US$97 billion. 

The successful fundraise, which was oversubscribed and closed at its hard cap, highlights, the company argues, the continued and growing appetite for secondaries investments among limited partners ( LPs ), as market volatility and the need for liquidity drove deal volumes to record highs in 2024.

The fundraise attracted a wide range of global investors, with more than 465 investors in total from 44 countries across Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia. The diversified LP base includes major pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, financial institutions and high-net-worth individuals.

There was particularly strong growth, the asset manager points out, among private wealth clients, which account for 22% of the total equity raised, compared with 11% in the eighth-generation platform.

This latest platform is aligned with its existing secondaries strategy of acquiring stakes in best-in-class private equity assets, providing liquidity solutions to the largest, most sophisticated institutional investors and general partners in the market.