Evercore’s Rainmaker Is Driving PE’s $200 Billion Bright Spot

The team at the center of one of Wall Street’s trendiest markets recently celebrated its blistering run in an unusual way: racing armadillos at a Texas dude ranch. At the invitation of their boss, Evercore Inc.’s Nigel Dawn, the group of roughly 150 gathered for three days of horseback riding and other Western-themed bonding last month, a much-needed chance to recharge and regroup. The deal flow is showing no signs of letting up.

Their specialty is “secondaries,” deals that help investors get rid of stakes in funds they no longer want or allow firms to hold on to assets beyond the traditional sell-by date. Once niche and rare, those transactions are now booming, part of the finance industry’s solution to a nearly frozen deal market that’s stymied private equity firms and choked off distributions to investors. The market for secondaries is on pace to pass $200 billion this year, more than triple its size in 2020.