Introduction
In the space of about nine weeks in the spring of 2025, three sponsors closed continuation vehicles (CVs) that each claimed a different kind of record. New Mountain Capital's vehicle for Real Chemistry, in April, was described by its lawyers as among the largest single-asset CVs ever raised. Inflexion's fund in May was, on its own account, the largest multi-asset CV raised in Europe. Vista Equity Partners' $5.6 billion vehicle for Cloud Software Group, in June, was reported as the largest single-asset CV on three measures. Records fall every year, so size is the least useful thing about these deals. Each is better read as a case, and a private capital advisory (PCA) banker reads it for three things: what it proved a CV could carry, which conflict it exposed, and which number the next general partner (GP) or buyer will quote as a precedent.
What Turns a Continuation Vehicle Into a Landmark
A landmark deal does at least one of three things. It clears at a scale buyers were not thought able to fund, it makes a structure acceptable that buyers had resisted, or it sets a reference point, a price, a return, or a set of terms, that later processes cite. Reported sizes measure different things (the vehicle, the equity raised, or enterprise value), so the figures describe each deal rather than rank them.
| Closed | GP and asset | Structure | Reported size | Lead investors | Financial advisor | What made it a landmark |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 2025 | New Mountain: Real Chemistry | Single-asset | About $3 billion | Coller Capital | Goldman Sachs (reported) | Process upsized from about $2.5 billion |
| May 2025 | Inflexion: four companies | Multi-asset | £2.3 billion | Carlyle AlpInvest, HarbourVest, Lexington | Evercore (lead); Jefferies and William Blair for affiliated funds | Largest multi-asset CV raised in Europe |
| June 2025 | Vista: Cloud Software Group | Single-asset | $5.6 billion, incl. $2.7 billion fresh capital | Coller Capital; Goldman Sachs Asset Management (reported) | Evercore (reported) | Largest single-asset CV on Vista's measures |
| April 2026 | New Mountain: Azuria and Inframark | Single-asset, formed by merger | $2.4 billion CV; $5.5 billion enterprise value | HarbourVest and one other institution | Not disclosed | Two companies combined inside one CV |
Earlier milestones, from zombie-fund restructurings to Nordic Capital's 2018 vehicle, belong to the history in the overview of GP-led secondaries. These deals came out of the market that history produced: deep buyer capital and sponsors keeping their best companies.
Vista and Cloud Software Group: A Single Asset at Buyout Scale
From Hung Debt to a Continuation Vehicle
Cloud Software Group began as one of the largest leveraged buyouts of 2022. Vista and Evergreen Coast Capital, an Elliott affiliate, agreed in January 2022 to take Citrix private for $16.5 billion including debt and to combine it with TIBCO, which Vista had bought in 2014. Rising rates then left the underwriting banks holding the financing: that September they sold $8.55 billion of loans and bonds at a loss Reuters put at about $700 million and Bloomberg at about $600 million, the kind of hung deal explained in how interest rates drive M&A and LBO activity.
- Hung Deal
A leveraged financing that underwriting banks have committed to provide but cannot sell to investors on the agreed terms, leaving the loans or bonds on the banks' balance sheets until they are sold, often at a loss. Hung deals typically follow a sharp rise in rates or credit spreads between commitment and syndication.
The overview of what PCA bankers do uses the company to show two layers of sponsor business. For the CV, the debt history matters twice. The equity sits beneath that capital structure, so buyers underwrote a heavily levered software company with nothing else in the vehicle to absorb a refinancing problem. And the selling fund was old: Vista's fifth flagship fund, raised in 2014, had held the TIBCO stake for about a decade.
The Capital Stack Behind the Record
Private Equity Wire's report on the closing put the vehicle at $5.6 billion, combining about $2.7 billion of fresh capital from secondary investors with about $2.2 billion from two later Vista flagship funds, Vista Equity Partners VII and VIII. Coller Capital was among the new investors, and Bloomberg reported Goldman Sachs Asset Management's secondaries business as a co-lead and Evercore as Vista's advisor. The company moved across at a 5% discount to its first-quarter 2024 valuation, and Fund V investors who took liquidity were offered a 4.1x multiple.
Three features carry beyond software:
- Syndicate depth. $2.7 billion of new money for one company is far more than any single lead typically writes.
- Cross-fund capital. Vista managed the selling fund and both flagship funds buying alongside the new investors.
- An aging mark. A price set against a March 2024 valuation and closed in June 2025 rests on a reference date more than a year old.
The second point is the one a committee dwells on. Each Vista fund had its own limited partners (LPs) and its own interest in the price, a form of the flagship participation discussed in CV economics, which signals conviction without putting the manager's own money at risk.
Inflexion Continuation Fund I: Europe's Multi-Asset Benchmark
Inflexion's deal showed that a mid-market European sponsor could place a diversified portfolio at this scale, and it did so with its first CV.
Four Companies and Three Underwriters
Inflexion's announcement put Inflexion Continuation Fund I at £2.3 billion, oversubscribed and underwritten by Carlyle AlpInvest, HarbourVest Partners, and Lexington Partners as lead investors, with further capital from existing and new investors. The fund took four companies, Aspen Pumps, Rosemont Pharmaceuticals, Ocorian, and CNX Therapeutics, to fund acquisition-led growth. Existing investors received £1.5 billion of net proceeds at a realized 3.4x and a 28% internal rate of return (IRR), with the option to reinvest.
Returns like these are quoted as a multiple beside an IRR, for reasons set out in IRR vs MOIC.
- Multiple on Invested Capital (MOIC)
Total value returned by an investment, realized proceeds plus any remaining value, divided by the capital invested. A 3.4x MOIC means each pound invested produced 3.4 pounds; unlike IRR, it ignores how long that took.
The multiple told selling LPs what they were locking in and told rollers the price at which they were buying again. Three co-underwriters also spread a four-company diligence burden across buyers whose own funds cap single exposures, the multi-asset logic in continuation vehicles explained.
Separate Advisors for Separate Selling Funds
Evercore's private capital advisory team was lead financial advisor, while Jefferies and William Blair advised certain affiliated Inflexion funds, and Kirkland & Ellis was counsel to the funds. Separate mandates for affiliated funds point to the core multi-asset problem: one negotiated price must be divided among companies and among groups of LPs whose interests differ.
New Mountain: Upsizing a Process and Merging Inside a CV
New Mountain Capital supplies two landmarks in one firm: a single-asset process that grew with buyer demand, and a later deal that used the CV as an M&A tool.
Real Chemistry: Demand Above the Plan
Real Chemistry, a health innovation company serving biopharmaceutical clients, had been owned by New Mountain Partners V since June 2019. Buyouts reported an expected size of about $2.5 billion in October 2024, then reported in February 2025 that New Mountain had raised its expectations for the vehicle to about $3 billion. It closed in April 2025, with Coller Capital as lead and the rest syndicated in a process run by Goldman Sachs, according to reports at the time; New Mountain's counsel described a $3.1 billion vehicle.
The buyer mix matters as much as the size. Trade press reported four registered '40 Act funds among the investors, part of the retail-sourced capital described in evergreen and 40 Act secondaries vehicles. Public records also show the deal from the seller's side: a February 2025 staff memo to the Nebraska Investment Council sets out the choice one LP faced.
A record deal is also hundreds of individual elections, and this one kept the fee rate, made the top-up optional, and left rolling a judgment on the asset, the kind of menu examined in LP elections and status quo terms.
Azuria and Inframark: A Merger Inside a CV
A year later New Mountain used the structure differently. In April 2026 it merged two water businesses, Azuria Water Solutions (formerly Aegion) and Inframark, and placed the combined company in what its announcement called a newly raised $2.4 billion single-asset CV, with New Mountain Partners VII, its latest flagship fund, investing alongside. The companies' completion release put total enterprise value at $5.5 billion, called it the largest infrastructure services-focused CV raised to date, and said HarbourVest and another institutional investor co-led the raise.
It is a CV version of the buy-and-build strategy, with fresh commitments held back for growth.
Each deal now appears in pitch materials as a comparable, and much of an advisor's work is explaining why a precedent does not transfer. A lead bidding on levered software will cite Vista's 5% discount; a mid-market GP, Inflexion's oversubscribed book; a sponsor hoping to upsize, Real Chemistry. Each number came from a particular asset, reference date, and quarter's buyer pool. Using a landmark well means knowing which of those conditions the new deal shares, which is also what discussing secondaries deals in interviews rewards.
