Private markets built exits. The register did not keep up.

Three things happened in the last ten days that all point the same way.

On 3 September CVC closed the largest secondaries fund ever raised, at $10 billion, against $5.8 billion for its predecessor in 2023 and $2.7 billion in 2019. Private Equity International put the backlog of unrealised asset value at an estimated $4 trillion, and quoted Jeremy Coller, founder of Coller Capital, expecting $500 billion of annual secondary volume by 2030. Evercore recorded $226 billion of volume in 2025.

On 26 August Nasdaq, LODAS and Harrison Street announced an auction venue for interests in a non-traded interval fund, with the first auction running from 28 August to 18 September. Harrison Street manages roughly $109 billion for more than 1,100 institutional investors and 300 registered investment advisers.

A structural shift is underway. Preqin counted a record 123 evergreen funds launched globally in 2025, with 30 more in the first two months of 2026;  Hamilton Lane forecasts that 20% of all private market capital will sit in evergreen structures within a decade, up from around 5%.

Private markets are acquiring the one thing they have never had, which is a way for an investor to get out before the end.

Now the part that is not being built at the same pace.

Every one of those exits is a transfer. Somebody has to take a holding out of one name, put it into another, verify the new owner is who they claim to be, update the record of ownership and keep an audit trail that survives a challenge years later. In public markets a registered transfer agent does that job and is supervised doing it. In private markets it is usually a lawyer, a spreadsheet and a fund administrator.

What follows is usually some combination of a legal opinion, a consent process, a restructuring conversation, weeks of elapsed time and, for a UK manager, a real question about whether EIS or SEIS relief survives the transfer. The LP often gives up. The manager files it as an awkward conversation rather than as a defect in the vehicle, because the alternative is admitting the fund was never built to let anyone leave.

The illiquidity comes at a price to the investor.

The uncomfortable conclusion is that liquidity is not a feature you add to a vehicle later. It is a property of how you recorded ownership on the day you formed it. A holding that exists as a line in a spreadsheet, cross-referenced to a subscription agreement in a shared drive and a KYC file in a third system, cannot be transferred quickly, because there is no single artefact to hand over.

This is what the FlowwFunds managed certificate programme is for. Private market ‘depositary receipts’ are issued per investor holding, each one a legally recognised ownership record, so an LP can trade on the secondary market without the fund restructuring, with EIS/SEIS eligibility maintained where applicable (UK only). Beneficial ownership is recorded, verified and maintained inside regulated infrastructure governed by the JFSC and FCA rather than spread across a fund admin, a KYC tool and a spreadsheet. At distribution, waterfall calculations, LP notices and tax documentation are generated automatically, and customer due diligence runs continuously so nothing needs chasing when an exit lands.

The perception of private markets has been that illiquidity is simply part of the deal. The market has gone and built exits anyway. The question for a manager raising today is narrower and more practical. When one of your LPs wants out in year four, is that a transaction or a project?

Floww Markets Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 980098). The Floww group includes a Jersey AIFM and a Jersey-regulated depositary. For information only, not financial, investment or tax advice.