An article published by Delano, a leading Luxembourg financial and business media platform, on 22 January, 2026, looks at the rapid growth of evergreen private-market funds and the impact of secondary investments on early performance. The piece features insights from Evan Clark, senior private-market analyst at the EDHEC Infrastructure & Private Assets Research Institute, which he presented at PwC Luxembourg’s Private Markets Valuation Conference held on 20 January, 2026:

“Open-ended “evergreen” private-market funds are drawing large inflows and leaning heavily on secondaries. That structure has a direct impact on how early performance appears. “Those assets are often bought at a discount, and you tend to see an immediate uplift in reported performance,” said Evan Clark, a senior private-market analyst at the EDHEC Infrastructure & Private Assets Research Institute.

(…) Clark, a regular reference point for institutional investors analysing private-market performance, set out the scale of the shift in the United States. “In the US, evergreen private equity has grown from practically nothing to about $80,000m in assets under management,” he said. “It is over $500,000m if you include all other asset classes.”

(…) The composition of those funds matters as much as their growth rate. “About 40% to 50% of the assets under management in these funds is going into secondaries,” Clark said.

(…) The mechanism is straightforward. Buying seasoned assets at a discount compresses the classic private-equity J-curve and can turn what would normally be a slow build in returns into an early jump in reported value. “You don’t achieve those returns immediately; they accrete over time,” Clark said.”

Read the full article here.