Jefferies Credit Partners targets $1.16bn for private credit secondaries fund

The fund is being arranged as a continuation vehicle, or staple deal. It will comprise about $580m (€500m) of investor equity alongside a similar amount of leverage, giving it roughly $1.16bn of buying power. As an evergreen vehicle, it can recycle capital indefinitely, and it will hold loans previously originated by Jefferies Credit Partners.

Private credit loans do not trade on public markets, which leaves lenders and their investors with capital locked up for years at a time. Secondaries transactions, and GP-led continuation funds in particular, have become the industry’s preferred workaround. They allow managers to generate liquidity from existing portfolios while raising money to keep lending, especially to the mid-size companies that dominate private credit borrowing.

Based on its own advised deals, Jefferies has estimated that credit secondaries volume rose from $6bn in 2023 to $10bn in 2024, and it expected more than $17bn in 2025. Looking further out, advisers project transacted volumes of around $28bn in 2026, climbing above $50bn by 2030, according to Ares Management.

Jefferies is far from alone in tapping the structure. Goldman Sachs recently sold an existing loan portfolio to a new vehicle backed by secondaries specialist Pantheon, which has separately led a $3.2bn continuation fund for Crescent Capital. Benefit Street Partners, meanwhile, closed a $2.3bn private credit continuation vehicle backed by Coller Capital. Ares is preparing an even larger move, lining up the sale of about $3.5bn (€3bn) of bundled stakes in a flagship European direct-lending fund, in what could rank among the largest credit-secondaries deals on record.

Taken together, the flurry of deals points to a structural shift in private credit. As holding periods lengthen and investors press for liquidity, GP-led continuation vehicles are moving from niche tool to mainstream financing route.