Funds & buyers · Platform within a diversified manager
CVC Secondary Partners (formerly Glendower Capital)
Glendower Capital built a specialist secondaries business in London focused on fund portfolio secondaries and GP-led transactions — including continuation funds, asset sales, and fund recapitalizations — closing over 130 transactions across more than 900 underlying fund interests before its ownership changed hands.
CVC Capital Partners agreed to acquire Glendower starting in 2021, initially forming a strategic partnership before completing its purchase of the remaining stake in 2024, at which point the business was rebranded CVC Secondary Partners as a fully integrated part of CVC's platform.
The deal gave CVC — historically known as a large-cap buyout firm — a dedicated secondaries capability, mirroring how several of the largest buyout and credit managers have added secondaries through acquisition rather than building the capability from scratch.
Worth knowing
CVC took a staged approach — a strategic partnership first, then full ownership three years later — rather than a single acquisition.
What a transaction here looks like
The team buys LP fund stakes and structures GP-led secondaries and continuation vehicles, having built that capability as Glendower Capital, itself a spin-out from Deutsche Bank's secondaries business. GP-led work is the more technical half: it involves negotiating with the manager, valuing specific companies being moved into a new vehicle, and setting terms that existing investors can reasonably accept or decline.
Who sits on the other side
On the other side sit fund managers who want more time and capital for assets they do not wish to sell, and their existing investors, who must choose between cashing out and rolling into the new vehicle. That choice — and whether it is offered on genuinely fair terms — is the central governance question in GP-led secondaries.
Where this sits in the market
Secondaries desks and franchises that operate inside a larger private-markets manager, usually built by acquiring an independent specialist and folding it into a broader platform.
This site groups buyers into four categories, because the category tells you more about how a firm behaves than its size does. See the rest of theplatform within a diversified managergroup in the directory.
Frequently asked
What is a continuation vehicle?
A new fund created to hold one or more companies moved out of an older fund, capitalised by secondary buyers. Existing investors choose to take cash or roll their exposure into the new vehicle. It gives the manager more time with assets it believes are not finished compounding.
Why are GP-led deals controversial?
Because the manager sits on both sides: it is selling assets it controls to a vehicle it will continue to manage. Fair process, independent valuation and a genuine option for existing investors are what separate a legitimate continuation fund from a conflicted one.
See the full buyer directory, or read the glossaryfor the terms (LP-led, GP-led, continuation fund) that describe how firms like this actually transact.