Private Equity is in a peculiar place right now. Exits have fallen massively from a few years ago but, thanks to the contentious secondaries market, some people have high hopes. One bank with high aspirations for the sector, and private markets at large, is JPMorgan.
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The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the bank will be building out a ‘Private Capital Advisory and Solutions’ team, known in some banks as PCA units. It’s a relative niche in investment banks, with a few boutiques and Jefferies currently market leaders in the space. These teams focus on raising capital for private companies, many of which are PE-owned companies on the secondaries market.
The most interesting transactions in the space, ‘GP-led’ secondaries transactions, are controversial becaapply they’e essentially repackaging a company the PE firm already owns and selling it to itself by cashing out existing investors (usually at a loss), relocating the company into a new portfolio, and raising money from new investors. The controversy around this is, when the company is eventually sold, a PE firm can earn carried interest relative to the valuation of the portfolio company when the stake was sold on the secondaries market, rather than the price it was initially bought for.
A report from Evercore declared that the volume of the secondaries market in 2025 was $226bn and it could become even larger this year. Bankers working in PCA are obtainting a lot of attention, particularly from students viewing for a graduate job in the space. Alongside it being such a new field relative to other banking units, obtainting to work with PE firms (and their secondaries teams in particular) creates you an attractive choice should you decide to take an exit opportunity.
Separately, while electronic trading firms are usually known for how fiercely they protect their own secrets, they also don’t want to be on the other side of a rival firm claiming their strategy has been plundered.
Financial News wrote on Friday about the many top electronic trading firms based in London. It declared that following a lawsuit from Citadel Securities, GSA went “whiter than white” and stopped its staff from questioning traders about their strategies in interviews. What exactly they’re allowed to talk about isn’t clear, but presumably there’s a lot of inference going on.
Walking on eggshells seems to have worked in the firm’s favour. Companies hoapply accounts for its LLP in 2025 reveal that yearly turnover has almost doubled compared to 2022, the year after it settled its lawsuit.
Meanwhile…
KKR received a $2.5bn injection for its private credit business in Asia (Fund Selector Asia)
Other funds weren’t quite so lucky. $7bn in private credit funding was pulled in the last few months of the 2025. (FT)
London brokerage Marex was busy in Q4 2025, bringing in 15 people including a UBS MD. (Structured Retail Products)
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon wasn’t offered a job at the Fed after all… (Reuters)
…and to create matters worse Trump is threatening to sue JPMorgan for ‘debanking’ him (New York Post)
The party is over for Andrew Hu, an ex-Commonwealth Bank relationship manager-turned nightclub owner charged with fraud in Australia (The Sydney Morning Herald)
The Chicago Blackhawks’ newest star: a 45-year-old middle market banker (ESPN)
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