Stapled secondary

Worked example

A worked example of a stapled deal's two halves (illustrative figures):

1. A secondary buyer wants to acquire $50 million of LP stakes in a GP's older, maturing fund. The GP, meanwhile, is raising a new fund and wants committed anchor capital.
2. The GP agrees to sell the $50 million of existing stakes only on the condition that the buyer also commits $20 million of fresh primary capital to the new fund — a $70 million total commitment, stapled together as one negotiated deal.
3. The buyer accepts the staple because the discounted entry into the existing, already-de-risked $50 million of assets effectively subsidizes the cost of gaining access to a sought-after GP's next fund, which might otherwise be hard to get an allocation into at all.
4. From the GP's side, a staple solves two problems in one transaction: it gives departing LPs liquidity on the old fund and locks in anchor capital for the new one, without having to run two separate fundraising processes.