PrivateTrade, the US-based online financial services company, is hoping to break an industry duck and make it third time lucky. It is preparing to launch its centralised exchange for trading secondary private equity holdings with the wreckage from two previous rival attempts still visible.

The market is certainly primed in the US and fast-growing in Europe. US pension funds, whose publicly listed stocks have declined in value with the fluctuations of the markets during 2000, have found their allocations to private equity rising proportionally.