What is Private Capital / Private Market Advisory?
I see that (mostly MM & boutique) firms like Evercore, Raymond James, Lazard, etc. have a Private Capital or Private Markets Advisory division.
What is this? Tried doing some digging but came up with nothing so if anyone has links/answers other than the vague "they provide secondary market liquidity and advice" that'd be super helpful. I've been researching Evercore deals in particular but haven't found any good public info so if you know of any deals out of that group that'd be great.
Secondary Advisory ("SA") is an extremely technical and complex area that is far more intellectually challenging than traditional M&A, so it's a role suited to those that enjoy the more technical and challenging side of advisory. I have a friend who was in M&A at a bulge bracket but quit because he was super smart and found M&A easy and boring, he then joined a SA team and finds it super complex which he loves as he enjoys the challenge.
In terms of what SA does, from my understanding there's basically two core areas:
1) they advise private equity funds ("GP") on structuring their funds to meet the specific requirements, e.g. a GP may have a certain problem and then the SA team will have to find a solution to the problem which could be suggesting the GP does a continuation fund, liquidity tender, partial realisation etc. They then manage the process and execute the transaction / restructuring for the GP.
2) the limited partner ("LP") side, which they would basically advise and execute liquidity solutions for existing LPs, e.g. a very simplified example would if a pension fund wanted to sell their stake in a GP, then the SA team would manage the process and execute it for them which for this example would be advising the pension fund, managing the process of the sell and finding a new buyer to replace their stake.
At the top firms (I think Evercore and Campbell Lutyens are the top two leaders and then after them Lazard / PJT / Jefferies are also very good) the hours are brutal.
I hope this helps.
PCA at Lazard is not the old Lazard Middle Market. PMA or Private Market Advisory is the old Lazard MM. Extremely confusing rebranding. PCA or Private Capital Advisory is the buy-side capital raising and secondary advisory arm.