General partner-led secondaries deals – when an asset or portfolio of assets is purchased from one fund and put into a new vehicle – are set to increase as the coronavirus pandemic pushes more buyout groups to find ways to hold on to good assets and provide much-needed liquidity to limited partners.

GP-led transactions accounted for about 32% of the total secondaries deal volume of $80bn in 2019, according to investment bank Evercore. Of this amount, single-asset deals accounted for around $5bn – more than twice the value in 2018. Such deals – also called fund restructurings – are attractive to GPs because it allows them to keep an asset they think either needs more investment or time to generate value, while also giving existing LPs who want to cash out an option to exit.