Firms & Funds

LACERA approves new Jefferies secondaries advisory team

The $60bn pension has worked with the team previously when they were a part of Greenhill, and staff wants to maintain that relationship.

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Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association decided to follow a Greenhill & Co. secondaries team over to their new home with Jefferies Group, a boon to the latter’s push to establish itself as a player in the secondaries advisory world.

The $60 billion pension’s board of investments voted unanimously to replace Greenhill with Jefferies on the pension’s list of approved secondaries advisors. The other two entities on the list are Evercore Group and Campbell Luytens.

Jefferies’ inclusion on the list allows LACERA to continue its relationship with a team that recently migrated to Jefferies from Greenhill.

In October, Greenhill lost seven managing directors from its secondaries advisory unit, according to sister title Secondaries Investor. Sources said the departures stemmed from frustration around Greenhill’s declining share price and the desire to take a larger share of the market for GP-led deals.

All told, five members of the team have joined Jefferies: Todd Miller, Andy Nick, Chris Bonfield, Brenlen Jinkens and Scott Beckelman. The other departures were Brian Mooney and Stephen Sloan, who joined Portfolio Advisors in September, as Secondaries Investor reported.

Senior investment officer David Chu said at the board of investment’s Wednesday meeting that all of the team members who have served LACERA have now moved to Jefferies. He also said this team had helped LACERA on a large secondaries sale, as Buyouts reported, as well as several subsequent secondaries purchases.

Contracts with the advisors are made on a deal-by-deal basis, meaning LACERA is not entering into any official relationship with Jefferies yet.

Most of the members of the team joined Greenhill when it acquired secondaries advisory Cogent Partners in 2015, Secondaries Investor reported.

The motion passed unanimously. The pension has plans to increase its secondaries activity. The board also gave final approval Wednesday to a plan to bolster LACERA’s secondaries and co-investment programs in 2021, which was already approved last month by a lower committee, as Buyouts reported.

Action Item: read the meeting materials for LACERA’s December 9 meeting here.