It's the private equity world's version of a revolving door.
A reviving private equity business and a maturing private equity secondary market are tempting executives who had switched to the investor side back into the money management world.
At the same time, a number of secondary market executives are making the move to work for institutional investors building their in-house capabilities.
The former secondary investment executives began moving to the investor side at a time when an increasing number of investors were using the private equity markets to prune their portfolios. Some of these executives ended up spearheading significant sales in the private equity secondary market.
A recent example is Barry Miller, who in 2011 left Nottingham Capital Management, a now-defunct New York private equity firm he co-founded that invested on the secondary market, to join the New York City Retirement Systems.
He helped the five pension funds that make up the $127.5 billion system sell off $800 million in limited partnership interests. Mr. Miller now is moving back to money management. He left NYCRS at the end of May to take a position at Landmark Partners, a Simsbury, Conn.-based private equity and real estate manager specializing in the secondary markets.
Mr. Miller is not alone. Also in May, Cari B. Lodge departed Tulane University, where she was a director in charge of private equity and private real assets for the New Orleans-based university's $961 million endowment, to join Commonfund Capital, Wilton, Conn. Ms. Lodge is spearheading the firm's expansion into investing on the private equity secondary market. Prior to joining Tulane, Ms. Lodge had been a director in the private equity secondary market business at Credit Suisse Strategic Partners.