About Pantheon

• Founded: 1982

• Headquarters: London, United Kingdom

• AUM: $96bn as of 2024

• Strategy: Global secondaries across private equity, infrastructure, and real assets

• Track record: Pantheon Global Secondary Fund VII closed at $6.8bn in 2023; infrastructure secondaries strategy launched in 2018

• Leadership: Paul Pittman, Partner and Global Head of Secondaries

Pantheon closed its latest infrastructure secondaries fund above its initial target, continuing a pattern of fund size growth in the firm's infrastructure secondaries practice. The fund focused on acquiring LP positions in infrastructure funds, with pricing driven by investor demand for exposure to long-duration assets with inflation linkage. The close follows a 12–18 month fundraising cycle that began in mid-2023, benefiting from sustained LP appetite for infrastructure secondaries.

The fundraise reflects two competing dynamics in infrastructure secondaries. Sellers — primarily institutional LPs rebalancing or seeking liquidity — are offering more volume than in prior vintages, creating buyer opportunities. At the same time, competition among dedicated infrastructure secondaries funds has tightened pricing on higher-quality assets, particularly regulated utilities and digital infrastructure. Pantheon's ability to exceed its target suggests continued institutional conviction in secondaries as a capital deployment channel, even as median discounts to NAV in infrastructure have compressed from double digits in 2022 to mid-single digits in 2024.

Fund size momentum in infrastructure secondaries bears watching as LP allocations mature. Pantheon's predecessor fund closed at approximately 75% of this fund's final size, indicating sustained GP fundraising power despite a crowded field. The question is whether transaction flow — particularly from European pension funds and North American insurance companies divesting older vintages — will scale proportionally, or if larger funds face deployment drag chasing a finite set of quality portfolios. The 2025–2026 vintage years will test whether infrastructure secondaries can maintain velocity as sellers grow more selective and buyers add dedicated capital.

Source: Secondaries Investor