PE Secondaries Case Studies

Hey everyone, 

I have a secondaries case coming up at a top 10 player (e.g. Ardian, HarbourVest, Coller, Lexington etc), and I want to focus my prep on what funds are actually testing for. They do both LP & GP-leds. I don't have much information on what to expect other than it's a take-home case and I'll need to return it the following morning, so the turnaround is less than 24 hrs. 

Would really appreciate any insight on:

  • Case structure - Typical format, design, and flow 
  • Technical focus - what they're likely to test, and what actually matters most in the evaluation

If anyone has any past practice materials, example formats, or insights from their own experience with secondaries case studies, I'd really appreciate anything you can share. I'm confident on LBO modelling and have solid buyout prep.

Thanks in advance! 

3 Comments
 

Will surely include some type of LBO. I’d also think about the next step - how does a sec firm get returns after the original sponsor? I’d think of being able to model:

  1. Company exit flowing to sponsor, how does that work via proceeds back to sponsor
  2. proceeds then coming from sponsor to LP (in this case, secondaries firm)

    Is all pretty simple, just a few layers.

 

Not in secondaries, but I remember seeing some secondaries models. Seemed like 2-3 sheets with some dense waterfalls. So probably being familiar with fund waterfalls under diff scenarions would be helpful.

incentives triumph ethics
 

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