Ardian raised a total of $30 billion for its private equity secondary market strategy including its fund of funds ASF IX, which closed at its hard cap and is separately managed, according to a news release and sources familiar with the fundraise.
Twenty-two percent of the total capital is from retail investors. ASF IX and separate accounts combined raised 58% more capital than its predecessor fund, ASF VIII, which raised $19 billion including additional capital for co-investments.
Ardian expects to invest the fund in high quality assets predominately in North America and Western Europe.
“The scale of our platform allows us to secure transactions of unprecedented size, including our two most recent secondary deals, each of which are larger than $3 billion,” said Mark Benedetti, executive president and co-head of secondaries at Ardian.
Investors in the fund include $519.6 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System, Sacramento.
Ardian has $97 billion in assets under management in its secondaries and primaries business.