The Exit Didn't Reopen. Liquidity Rerouted.
Last edition made the case that private markets were living with an exit constraint. This edition shows what the market built around it.
Secondaries just posted the largest first half on record. Continuation funds went from a workaround to a fifth exit path. The largest infrastructure fundraising year ever landed while buyout distributions sat at half their historical rate. None of that is a recovery. It's a re-routing, and the managers who understand the new plumbing hold a structural advantage over the ones waiting for the old channels to come back.
That's also why the next six weeks of CAN programming look the way they do. A session on the fellowships that open board-level doors. An allocator on how emerging managers actually get screened. A transaction briefing on the ownership transitions that are about to define lower-middle-market deal flow.
SPECIAL WEBINAR
Monday, September 28 ยท 1:00 PM ET ยท CAN Members Only
The rooms where capital gets allocated are often shaped by the fellowships that open their doors. This Monday, CAN hosts a session on two of the most respected executive fellowships in the Northeast: the Economic Club of New York Fellows Program and the Bowe Fellowship for Executives.
Featured speaker Sylvie Bello is a 2026 ECNY Fellow who co-leads the Fellows' Board of Directors Readiness Subgroup, a Bowe Fellow at the World Trade Center Institute, and Founder & Executive Director of the Cameroon American Council. She has spent over a decade in fiduciary oversight on the Baltimore Museum of Art's Accession Committee, so she knows what board-level readiness actually looks like. She'll walk through what each program looks for, how the two differ, and how to position an application.
THE CAPITAL BRIEFING SERIES
Monthly briefings. Members only.
CAN convenes a monthly virtual series for members, 60 minutes, one question that matters to how capital moves, and direct access to the thinking shaping private markets right now.
The Series Continues:
How Allocators Screen Emerging Managers Friday, October 23rd | 1:00 PM ET
Ownership Transitions: The ETA & Succession Window Thursday, November 5th | 1:00 PM ET
Attendance is a member benefit. If you're reading this as a subscriber, the room is one application away.
All briefings are informational programming. No session constitutes an offer, solicitation, investment advice, or capital introduction. Select Replays OnDemand for Members in CAN ATLAS.
CAPITAL MARKET BRIEFS
THE INTERVIEW
$30M AUM. No Ivy League. No Pedigree. How 6.8.10 Capital Built It Anyway.
Our host Tariq sits down in Atlanta with Amari Ruff and Sean Doe of 6.8.10 Capital Partners. Two former operators who exited their own companies, started comparing deals over lunch, and built a firm on one rule: the jockey before the horse.
Why they walked away from VC, how they picked their sectors, and the exit one of them says he'd take back.
โ Watch the full interview below!
THE MARKET READ
FIFA's $20 Billion Private Equity Dealโฆand Why It Failed.
FIFA tried to sell a stake in the World Cup's commercial business. Europe's clubs threatened to walk. On August 1, the deal was dead.
Tariq breaks down what the structure actually was, why the backlash wasn't about ownership, and the Atlanta firm taking the opposite approach to sports capital.
โ Watch the full episode!
THE SIGNAL
The Channels Changed. The Capital Didn't Stop.
$260 Billion. Double 2021. Not Distress..Think Infrastructure.
Lazard's Interim 2026 Secondary Market Report puts first-half volume at $124 billion, up 28% and a first-half record. Trailing twelve months: $260 billion, twice the 2021 market. GP-led and LP-led split almost evenly.
M&A passed its 2021 peak and IPOs came back, but the recovery went to large strategic deals. Sponsor exits stayed selective, and secondaries filled the gap. Single-asset continuation funds are now 54% of GP-led volume, most pricing above 90% of NAV. Buyers entered the second half with $77 billion set aside for GP-led deals alone.
The read for managers: secondaries are no longer a signal of a problem. They're a permanent realization channel, and understanding continuation-fund mechanics is now part of the job.
DPI Is the New IRR.
The operators agree with the data. On stage at Milken, Lexington Partners put it in one comparison: from 2014 to 2020, LPs could count on 25โ28% of NAV coming back as cash the next year. Last year it was 12%. The $4 trillion unrealized stack gets bigger before it gets smaller.
Two knock-on effects. The secondary market is under-capitalized, roughly $165 billion raised last year against $225 billion put to work. Continuation vehicles are now 15โ20% of exits, with the old LP stigma fading as GPs get transparent about why an asset goes in one.
Leonard Green's line for the room: DPI is the new IRR. An IRR is only accurate when you sell.
Source: Milken Institute Global Conference 2026: "Navigating Liquidity Challenges in Private Equity"
$106 Trillion. The Public Sector Can't Answer It Alone.
McKinsey puts the global infrastructure requirement through 2040 at $106 trillion; transport, energy, digital, and social leading. Private capital is answering: infrastructure fundraising hit a record near $200 billion in 2025, and private infra AUM is approaching $2 trillion.
It's the asset class LPs most want more of, and they're moving up the risk curve into core-plus and greenfield. One caution: five-year DPI on infra funds has slipped to about 13%, the lowest since 2012โ13. The capital arrived. The returns still have to.
ALLIANCE PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
Emerging managers rarely lose LPs on strategy alone. What can cost most during their raise is the back office. Carta provides the fund administration, cap table, and investor reporting infrastructure that makes a first-time fund look institutional. We work with Carta because the managers CAN was built for are underwritten as much on operational readiness as on returns, and that readiness shouldn't be the reason a strong manager doesn't get the meeting. That's why Carta's fundraising research anchored our Capital Briefing in August, and why partners like Carta are exactly what the Alliance Marketplace is being built around. Members who want an introduction can reach CAN directly.
โ Interested in partnering with CAN? CONTACT US
JOIN THE NETWORK
A Network Built for the Builders
You are building something. A fund. A firm. A portfolio. A career inside the rooms where capital decisions get made.
CAN is a private network for asset managers, sponsors, searchers, allocators, and professionals working in private capital markets. Members convene in person and online, share what they're working on, and find each other across the layers of the capital stack.
CAN's mission is to support the building of $1 trillion in aggregate AUM and enterprise valuations inside the network by 2055. That mission is the through-line for everything we do. Members who join are joining the community working toward it.
If that's a community you want to be part of, we'd like to hear from you.
A Final Note
โ..Play the long game, not the wrong game.
Capital compounds. Relationships compound. Reputation compounds. Everything that lasts in this business is built slowly, on purpose, with people who show up the same way every time.
That's what CAN is. That's what we're building..โ
Until next edition,
The Capital Ledger
Published by The Capital Alliance Network
The Capital Ledger is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, an offer to sell, or a solicitation to buy any security or investment product. The Capital Alliance Network is not a broker-dealer, placement agent, or registered investment advisor. References to third-party data, reports, and market activity are drawn from public sources and provided for educational purposes only. All programming referenced herein, including the Capital Briefing Series, is informational and does not constitute an offer, solicitation, or capital introduction.
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