Infrastructure’s longevity problem is minting a record secondaries market
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Infrastructure secondaries fundraising and dealmaking have set new records, as investors build a market around a long-standing mismatch between private market fund cycles and asset lifespans.
Fundraising for the asset class reached a record $11.5 billion globally last year, driven by a handful of larger funds, more than doubling the $5.6 billion raised in 2024, according to PitchBook data. While the strategy remains niche, with only five fund closes, 2025 also marked the highest number of fund closings in the past decade.
Blackstone closed the largest dedicated infrastructure secondaries fund on record at $5.5 billion in September, raising 47% more than its predecessor, which was closed at $3.75 billion in 2020.
However, the record could soon return to Europe as Ardian seeks to raise funding for its latest infrastructure secondaries vehicle. The Paris-headquartered firm had already secured more than $5 billion in commitments for the fund in February, according to Infrastructure Investor, which puts it on track to surpass the $5.25 billion raised for its predecessor in 2022. Another significant fund close last year was Ares’ $3.3 billion close of its Secondaries Infrastructure Solutions Fund III in October.
Deal value in infrastructure secondaries also set a new record last year, rising to $25 billion, more than double the $11 billion transacted in 2023, according to placement agent PJT Partners’ FY 2025 Secondary Market Insight. PJT Partners predicts the market will almost double again to $45 billion in 2030.
Long-life assets, short-life funds
A structural mismatch between the fund life and asset development cycles drives the surge in infrastructure secondaries.
“These are large capex projects. It takes time to recover the capex. Their useful lives are much longer than the fund’s life of 10 years, so you have 10-15 more years to really operate these assets and do further value creation,” said Faraz Qureshi, head of infrastructure secondaries at BNP Paribas Asset Management.
BNPP AM recently closed its first infrastructure secondaries fund in March at $722 million. It is already 80% committed across 14 investments with a European mid-market focus and is expecting to launch the next iteration in the coming months.
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Primary infrastructure fundraising in Europe has taken off since 2017, with around €491.1 billion (about $576.9 billion) raised across 679 funds, and many of these infrastructure funds are nearing the end of their investment periods.
“Those portfolio companies may have specific capex needs, and a GP-led transaction may help fund the capex requirements of particular companies and their growth trajectory,” said Anish Butani, head of infrastructure at adviser Bfinance.
According to Campbell Lutyens, another placement agent, in its Q4 2025 Infrastructure Market Report, GP-led deals are expected to reach a record high of $14.6 billion in 2025, with EMEA taking about 30% of the deal flow.
“We are seeing a significant increase in the GP‑led secondaries. We believe a lot of portfolio rebalancing has already been done, so now it is less about portfolio rebalancing, it is more about portfolio growth,” BNPP’s Qureshi said.
GPs are securing follow-on capital for high-performing portfolio companies in capital-intensive sectors with high growth potential, including energy transition and digital infrastructure assets.
The capital investment needed to meet global demand for decarbonization and connectivity makes them strong candidates for GP-led investments. Data center investors are now facing surging deal flow driven by rapid AI adoption, but lack the capital to scale their platforms.
GPs are also increasingly using GP-led transactions to provide liquidity options for LPs seeking near-term distributions, as
traditional exit routes remain subdued. But demand for infrastructure secondaries is not only coming from sellers.
“The other reason why we see appetite for infrastructure secondaries is for investors who are still ramping up their infrastructure portfolios. Investors can deploy capital, access distributions, and build a diversified portfolio, which may not be available on day one on the primary side,” Qureshi said.
This article originally appeared on PitchBook News
