Introduction
The headline barely moved. Jefferies put average LP portfolio pricing, the price buyers pay for limited partners' (LPs') fund interests, at 87% of net asset value (NAV) in the first half of 2026, the same as for full-year 2025. Yet every strategy line beneath it shifted: buyout, credit and real estate slipped, while infrastructure and venture rose. A flat average over moving parts means offsetting price changes, a change in what was sold, or both, so the strategy rows say more than the headline. The first-half reviews from Jefferies, Campbell Lutyens, Evercore and Lazard describe those rows in different units, and on two strategies they disagree about the direction.
Four Reviews, Four Ways of Quoting LP Pricing
Jefferies' July 2026 secondary market review reports an average price as a percentage of NAV and credits the steady 87% to demand for diversified, high-quality portfolios with limited software exposure. Campbell Lutyens quotes the other side of the ratio: an average discount of 13.3%, against 13.6% for full-year 2025, or 86.7% of NAV. How a percentage of NAV becomes cash at closing is explained in pricing LP interests.
- Value-Weighted Average Discount
An average discount to NAV in which each transaction counts in proportion to its size, measured by Campbell Lutyens as purchase price plus unfunded commitments. Large sales move it most, and a change in what sold can move it with no fund repriced.
Evercore publishes no LP-led average: it plots pricing by strategy on a chart without data labels and says most strategies, including buyout, credit, infrastructure and tail-end, sit near or above their historical averages. Lazard calls LP-led pricing well supported by a deep buyer universe while buyers concentrated capital in smaller, targeted portfolios. Its price bands cover continuation vehicles (CVs), deals led by the general partner (GP), and belong to the GP-led market.
Pricing by Strategy, Survey by Survey
Campbell Lutyens labels discount levels for only a few categories and changes for the rest, and Evercore's column records direction only.
| Strategy | Jefferies, H1 2026 (FY2025) | Campbell Lutyens, 1H 2026 (vs FY2025) | Evercore, H1 2026 (vs 2025) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unit | Average price, % of NAV | Value-weighted discount; change in points where no level is labelled | Direction on an unlabelled chart |
| All LP portfolios | 87% (87%) | 13.3% (13.6%) | No average |
| Buyout | 91% (92%) | Mega unchanged; mid-market 0.1 pt narrower; small 1.7 pt wider | Slightly lower; quality exposure in the 90s |
| Credit | 89% (91%) | Private credit 5.1%, 3.5 pt narrower | Senior slightly lower; junior higher |
| Infrastructure | 91% (90%) | 5.0%, 3.9 pt narrower | Slightly higher |
| Venture and growth | Venture 79% (78%) | Venture 32% (26%); growth 2.9 pt narrower | Lower |
| Real estate | 68% (70%) | 6.0 pt narrower | Little changed |
| Fund-of-funds and secondary funds | Not published | 5.5 pt narrower | Not shown |
| Tail-end | Over ten years: 25%+ discounts | Not a category | Roughly 70%, stable since 2022 |
The ordering agrees: infrastructure, credit and buyout sit closest to NAV, venture and real estate deepest. Infrastructure is the one strategy all three show firming. Within buyout, Campbell Lutyens shows fund size mattering, with small funds softer as buyers avoided unfamiliar managers. Why strategies sit at different levels at all is the subject of pricing by strategy.
Where the Surveys Disagree: Credit and Venture
Credit is the clearest split: Jefferies down to 89% from 91% on more cautious underwriting, Campbell Lutyens' private credit discount narrowing to 5.1%. Venture splits the other way: Jefferies up 100 basis points (bp) to 79%, while Campbell Lutyens' venture discount widened from 26% to 32% on heavy software concentration and Evercore calls venture and growth softer.
Software Exposure and the Question of Sponsor Marks
The half's main pricing driver cut across strategy labels. Jefferies found buyout without software-as-a-service (SaaS) exposure, direct lending, infrastructure and leading AI businesses often traded at single-digit discounts, while SaaS exposure, tail-end funds, real estate and early-stage venture priced wider. Evercore names software buyout funds and large-cap funds as its two softer pockets.
The friction sits in the reference NAV. In Lazard's interim 2026 secondary market report, about 60% of investors say GPs adjusted marks only modestly and often still anchor to prior peaks, and Lazard calls pricing increasingly sector-dependent, with less reliance on sponsor-marked NAV. A discount to a stale software mark widens partly because the denominator lags the SaaS valuation reset, not only because buyers value the companies less.
Fund Age, Geography and the Bidder
Young Funds, Tail-End Funds and the Vintage Mix
Fund age separates prices as sharply as strategy. Jefferies found funds under five years old priced at single-digit discounts, often added to portfolios to lift the aggregate price, while tail-end funds over ten years needed discounts of 25% or more. Its weighted average vintage sold was 2018, unchanged from 2025.
- Sweetener (Secondary Sale)
A fund interest added to a portfolio sale because it will price close to NAV, typically a young fund with strong marks, lifting the blended price of the whole portfolio.
Evercore has about 70% of LP-led volume from funds three to eight years old, the mid-life vintages at the center of the market, and select high-quality tail-ends pricing into the 80s. Campbell Lutyens has funds ten years and older falling to 11% of LP-led volume from 19% in 2025, with tail discounts widening.
A Steep Geographic Gradient
Geography produces Jefferies' widest spread: North American funds, 78% of its LP volume, averaged 88% of NAV; European funds, 17%, averaged 86%; Asian funds, 4%, averaged 66%. Asian and emerging-market exposure priced at discounts of 35% or more and usually sold only alongside broader Western exposure, a flight to quality.
Portfolio Size and Evergreen Buyers
Portfolio size has not become a penalty: Jefferies counted 15 LP deals above $1 billion and a record five above $2 billion. The sharper effect is who bids. Campbell Lutyens' first-half 2026 report found evergreen funds paid 92.1% of NAV for LP portfolios against 86.7% for the market, a 540bp gap against 334bp in 2025.
- Evergreen Pricing Premium
The gap between the average price open-ended, periodically redeemable funds pay for LP portfolios and the market average in the same survey. It measures what those bidders paid for what they bought, not a margin a seller can add.
Campbell Lutyens cautions that evergreen portfolios may differ from the market's, and the share of evergreen deployment going to LP-led deals fell to 37% from 58%, so these buyers were selective. Lazard ties their support for pricing to lower return thresholds, as evergreen and '40 Act secondaries vehicles explains.
Deferrals and Reading the Rows for One Portfolio
Deferred consideration holds headlines up. Jefferies found about a third of LP sales used structure: deferrals in 26% of all LP sales, and preferred equity, managed funds and collateralized fund obligations in 7%. Evercore's first-half 2026 review found some deferral in 34% of LP-led volume and calls it a form of leverage that lets sellers defend a headline price; the trade-off is priced in deferred payments and structured pricing tools.
A seller or advisor works one survey at a time: re-weight its strategy rows to the portfolio's NAV mix, adjust for age, geography and software look-through, then ask which bidders the portfolio would draw. Bands and averages answer different questions: Jefferies' 91% for buyout says where the half's buyout sales cleared, while Evercore's "in the 90s" for quality buyout says where a good fund can clear. The sequence from expectation to bid to cash is rehearsed in the LP portfolio sale walkthrough.
For a young buyout fund with little software, the strategy row is a fair guide. For a ten-year-old, software-heavy or Asian fund, the dispersion inside the category exceeds the distance between categories, so the expectation starts from the fund, and the survey row shows only how far from the typical sale its bid will land.
