Goldman shops $450 mln portfolio of fund interests on secondary market

Goldman Sachs is shopping a portfolio of stakes in older funds valued at around $450 million, two sources told Buyouts.

Greenhill Cogent is adviser on the offering, which has been in the market for some time, sources said.

The portfolio contains interests in a variety of fund strategies including mezzanine and debt, distressed, real estate and special opportunities, one of the sources said. The second source described it as a “fund-of-funds cleanup deal.”

“They’re trying to get liquidity to its private clients in some of [its] 10-plus-year funds,” the first source said.

Goldman Sachs’s PE funds-of-funds business is housed within the Alternative Investments and Manager Selection group.

Fund-of-fund cleanup sales have become an important part of the secondary market. They’re a way for fund-of-fund managers to deliver liquidity to LPs in older funds with the hope that those clients will recommit the money back to new funds.

Funds-of-funds made up about 18 percent of the seller universe in secondaries last year, Greenhill Cogent’s full-year 2017 secondaries report says. Cogent found that funds-of-funds “nearing the end of their fund life are increasingly exploring sales via the secondary market,” the report said.

Andrew Williams, a spokesman with Goldman, did not respond to a request for comment.

Action Item: Read more about Goldman Sachs AIMS group here: https://bit.ly/2HmLsct

The Goldman Sachs logo is displayed on a post above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 11, 2013. Photo courtesy Reuters/Lucas Jackson