Introduction
A public merger comes with a paper trail: a merger agreement, a proxy statement, a price per share. A secondaries deal often arrives as a few paragraphs. When MidOcean Partners closed a continuation vehicle (CV) for Cloyes Gear and Products in May 2026, the announcement gave the size, the lead investor and the financial advisor, but not the price against net asset value (NAV) or how many limited partners (LPs) sold. Discussing a deal in a private capital advisory (PCA) interview means reasoning from that thin disclosure to each party's motive and marking where the public record stops. The general method is in how to discuss a deal in the news; the secondaries version adds market trends and the interviewing firm's own deals.
Choosing What to Prepare: One LP-Led Sale, One CV, One Trend
A deal worth preparing passes four tests:
- Public disclosure: a release from the general partner (GP), lead investor, seller or advisor, or a listed vehicle's regulatory announcement.
- A stated rationale: the parties said why they transacted, so the discussion tests a reason rather than inventing one.
- Relevance to the seat: the team's vertical and, where public, the firm's own announced mandates.
- Recent but settled: closed within about a year, not a process still being explored.
Three items cover the ground: one LP-led sale, one GP-led deal and one trend. The deal types test different mechanics, a discount on another manager's fund against a conflicted price on the GP's own asset, and interviewers pivot between them. The 2025 vehicles in the landmark continuation vehicles article are useful reference points, but widely reported; a smaller deal from a sponsor's or advisor's own announcements shows independent research.
A Framework for Talking Through a Deal
Six moves work for either deal type, in order: what happened, why each party acted, the disclosed terms, what was not disclosed, what the deal signals, and a view. The table applies the first four to two closed 2026 transactions.
| Move | GP-led: Cloyes CV, May 2026 | LP-led: CT Private Equity Trust, July 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| What happened | Single-asset CV, about $300 million of commitments; Hamilton Lane sole lead | Nine European fund interests, 2008 to 2019 vintages, sold for £24.7 million |
| Why | GP extends ownership of a 2022 investment; investors take liquidity or stay | Mature funds with less upside; cash to cut borrowing and fund co-investments |
| Disclosed terms | MidOcean funds invest alongside and keep control; Piper Sandler exclusive advisor | 16.1% discount to December 31, 2025 NAV, adjusted for cash flows |
| Not disclosed | Price to NAV, roll rate, fresh capital, carry and fees | Buyers, advisor, fund-by-fund prices |
The GP-Led Example: MidOcean and Cloyes
Hamilton Lane's announcement of May 4, 2026 says the vehicle lets MidOcean extend its ownership of a company with significant remaining value creation potential and fund acquisitions, while existing investors choose liquidity or continued investment. The GP keeps an asset it rates highly and adds capital, selling LPs receive cash, and Hamilton Lane, as sole lead, underwrites one company much as a buyout investor would. A four-year hold invites the question of why not sell, and the release does not say whether a sale was tested.
A defensible view: the deal fits the shift toward single-asset CVs, and the missing price to NAV would show how strongly buyers agreed.
The LP-Led Example: CT Private Equity Trust
Here the seller is itself public. The London-listed CT Private Equity Trust announced on July 2, 2026 that it had completed the sale of nine older European fund positions at a 16.1% discount to NAV, measured on December 31, 2025 values adjusted for cash flows to completion, the reference-date convention explained in pricing LP interests.
- Listed Private Equity Trust
A closed-end investment company whose shares trade on a stock exchange and which holds private equity fund interests or company stakes. Its shares can trade above or below its reported NAV, and it announces material transactions, such as a secondary sale, to the market.
The signal is in one sentence from Andrew Carnwath, the fund manager: the discount was "materially narrower" than the one on the trust's own shares. A listed seller compares two discounts, the buyers' on its funds and the market's on its shares; a view weighs that logic against the 1.3% fall in NAV.
Discussing a Market Trend: Figure, Source, Definition, So-What, Counterpoint
A trend answer has five parts, each guarding against a different slip. Take one dated figure: Evercore's July 2026 secondary market review counted about $34 billion of single-asset CV volume in the first half of 2026, up 88% on a year earlier and 53% of GP-led volume. The definition matters next: Evercore measures volume as purchase price plus unfunded commitments, so the figure is not cash paid to sellers.
The so-what: sponsors are keeping their highest-conviction companies, concentrating buyer capital in larger single positions that compete with LP portfolio sales; Cloyes is one data point. The counterpoint: volume counts only deals that closed, and other surveys classify GP-led deals differently, as where the secondaries market stands shows. Full-year projections are forecasts, not results, and the secondaries market outlook sets out what each assumes.
Researching the Interviewing Firm's Own Deals
Four sources cover most of what is public about an advisor's mandates:
- Sponsor and investor releases, which often name the advisor, as the Cloyes release did.
- The advisor's own news page, where many firms announce completed mandates.
- Trade press such as Secondaries Investor and Buyouts, which report roles releases omit.
- Rankings and surveys, thinner than in mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
Campbell Lutyens, for example, announced in May 2026 that it co-advised Bridge Growth Partners with J.P. Morgan on a $790 million single-asset CV for Solace. Secondaries Investor's annual advisory survey compiles deal values the advisers report themselves, a self-reported measure rather than an audited deal credit.
- League Table (Investment Banking)
A ranking of advisors or underwriters by the number or value of transactions credited to them over a period, compiled by a data provider or publication. Each compiler sets its own crediting rules, including how a deal with several advisors is counted.
Credits are also marketing, so the role deserves precise reading: a co-advisory mandate, as on Solace, is not a sole one.
The Firm's Own Deals Versus a Competitor's
A deal the interviewing firm advised works only if it can be discussed from public facts: the interviewer may have staffed it and will notice errors and flattery alike. The productive angle is the advisor's job, such as why the GP needed a process and how a lead was chosen. A competitor's deal is just as legitimate, discussed neutrally and without guessing at its fees.
What Shows Real Understanding, and Handling Pushback
The difference between depth and recitation shows in a handful of habits:
| Shows real understanding | Exposes shallowness |
|---|---|
| Dates each fact and names its source | Quotes a size with no date or source |
| States which terms were not disclosed | Supplies a price to NAV nobody published |
| Explains every party's motive, the buyer's included | Tells the deal only from the GP's side |
| Links the deal to a trend and its counterpoint | Calls every deal a record |
| Holds a view and says what would change it | Drops the view at the first challenge |
Pushback and "What Would You Have Done Differently?"
Pushback tests whether the view rests on reasoning: concede a wrong fact at once, defend sound reasoning, and name the information that would change the conclusion. "What would you have done differently?" asks for a trade-off within the advisor's control, not a criticism. For CT Private Equity Trust, would adding a younger fund have lifted the blended price at the cost of more upside? For Cloyes, should a third-party sale have run alongside as a price check, the comparison in CV vs sale vs dividend recap? Stating each alternative's cost turns an opinion into a judgment.
Confidentiality for Lateral Candidates
A lateral candidate uses only what is public about their own deals: the announced size, the parties and the candidate's role, as on the deal sheet described in the PCA interview format. Bid levels, buyer lists and LP elections stay confidential after closing, so the work itself is described with unannounced details left out.
The deal discussion is the one question in which the candidate chooses the material, so the choice is assessed before the first sentence. A closed deal with a clear public record, from the team's own vertical, already shows how the research was done; the six moves only confirm it.
