Investments in secondaries drove returns at private foundations in 2025, according to new research by Commonfund. This may, however, be something of a mirage.
Investments in the PE secondary market, whether by acquiring secondhand fund stakes or backing managers that do, generated an average gain of 20.6% at the private foundations observed in the report, published last week by the $31.5 billion investment manager and the Council on Foundations, a nonprofit membership ***** ociation. This was the highest return of any alternative ***** et class among the 17 respondents that reported secondaries returns.
This doesn't mean that mature PE funds are once again exiting companies and throwing off cash.
Mark Hoeing, president and CEO of CF Private Equity, Commonfund's private equity arm, attributed the outperformance to secondary-market buyers' practice of purchasing ***** ets at a discount and marking them to par after purchase.
This practice has been employed against a backdrop of record secondary transaction volumes, multiplying the impact of the mark-ups in performance. Total secondary deal volume surpassed $120 billion in the first six months of 2026, a 20% jump over H1 2025, the previous record.

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