Leading Private Credit Fund Placement and Secondary Advisory Firms

The advisor landscape supporting the private credit fund placement market spans global placement advisors, private market specialists, secondary advisory specialists, boutique fundraising firms and credit-focused capital raising advisors, each occupying a distinct competitive position.

FIRSTavenue, Campbell Lutyens, Eaton Partners, PJT Park Hill, Rede Partners, Threadmark, Evercore Private Funds Group, Lazard Private Capital Advisory, Greenhill Private Capital Advisory, Setter Capital, Monument Group, Atlantic-Pacific Capital, MVision, Hodes Weill, Triago, Probitas Partners, Mercury Capital Advisors and Asante Capital Group are covered in the full report.

This page introduces the advisor landscape by firm type rather than by individual firm ranking, and states no estimated market position, funds raised or transaction volume figures for any named firm.

FIRSTavenue is among the firms covered in this report, with particular relevance given its strategic focus on secondary market expansion and private credit fundraising growth, described here on the same factual, non-promotional basis as every other firm named in this report.

Firm type, not firm name alone, is the more useful lens for a manager or investor first evaluating the advisor landscape, since firms within the same type generally offer broadly comparable service scope and client focus.

Global placement advisors and secondary advisory specialists tend to serve the largest and most established manager clients, while boutique and credit-focused firms tend to compete more heavily for mid-market and emerging manager mandates.

For managers, understanding firm type before evaluating individual firms helps narrow a shortlist to advisors genuinely suited to a specific fundraise or transaction's scale and complexity.

For investors, understanding firm type helps contextualise which advisory relationships are likely driving a given fundraising or secondary process they are being approached about.

The eighteen firms covered in this report also differ in how much of their business is dedicated specifically to private credit versus spanning private equity, real assets or other alternative asset classes alongside it.

This dedicated-versus-diversified distinction is a useful further lens once firm type has narrowed a shortlist, since a firm with a genuinely dedicated private credit practice often maintains deeper sector-specific institutional relationships than a diversified generalist.

Global Placement Advisors and Private Market Specialists

Global placement advisors and private market specialists form the largest firm type grouping by geographic reach and service breadth in this report.

Global placement advisors typically maintain offices and institutional investor relationships across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, positioning them for the largest, most complex, genuinely cross-border fundraises.

Private market specialists typically maintain deep expertise across private equity and private credit placement, without the narrower single-strategy focus of a credit-focused advisor.

This grouping tends to compete most directly for the largest deal size bands and the most established fund manager types, given the scale of institutional investor relationships required to compete credibly.

For managers, engaging a firm within this grouping typically makes most sense for a large, complex or genuinely global fundraise requiring the broadest possible institutional investor reach.

For investors, firms within this grouping typically represent the broadest single source of private credit fundraising deal flow, given their positioning across multiple manager relationships simultaneously.

This grouping's competitive position is reinforced by long-established institutional investor relationships that take years, not months, for a newer entrant to replicate.

Firms within this grouping typically maintain the broadest coverage across the nine investor types this report tracks, from pension funds and insurance companies through to wealth platforms and family offices.

For managers evaluating this grouping, the firms' scale can also mean a fundraise competes for senior attention against other concurrent mandates the same advisory team is running.

Secondary Advisory Specialists

The private credit strategies and fund structures most frequently involved in secondary transactions, including direct lending and senior secured lending vehicles, shape which firms have built the deepest secondary advisory specialisation.

Secondary advisory specialists focus specifically on LP-led and GP-led transaction execution, distinct from firms whose primary focus is fund placement advisory.

This grouping has grown in relevance as GP-led transaction volume, including continuation vehicles and tender offers, has grown into a majority share of the broader private capital secondaries market.

Firms within this grouping typically maintain deeper transaction structuring and process management capability than a generalist placement advisor without dedicated secondary transaction experience.

For general partners and limited partners evaluating a secondary transaction, engaging a firm within this grouping typically provides more specialised execution support than a generalist placement advisor.

For the broader advisor landscape, secondary advisory specialisation has become an increasingly important differentiator as private credit secondaries grow from a smaller base within the broader private capital secondaries market.

This grouping's growth trajectory closely tracks the broader shift toward planned, rather than purely opportunistic, use of secondary liquidity solutions across private credit fund vehicles.

Some firms within this grouping originated as private equity secondaries specialists and have since built out dedicated private credit secondary capability, while others were built around private credit secondary expertise from the outset.

For general partners, this origin distinction can matter less than a firm's current track record and institutional relationships specifically within private credit secondary transactions.

Boutique and Credit-Focused Capital Raising Advisors

Boutique fundraising firms and credit-focused capital raising advisors complete this report's firm type grouping, typically distinguished by narrower service scope or sector focus than the largest global firms.

Boutique fundraising firms typically compete on relationship depth and dedicated attention rather than the broadest possible geographic or service coverage, often appealing to emerging or mid-market managers.

Credit-focused capital raising advisors typically maintain deeper sector expertise specifically within private credit strategies than a generalist private markets placement firm, an increasingly valued differentiator as private credit strategy complexity grows.

This grouping tends to compete most directly for mid-market and emerging manager mandates, an area this report identifies as a considerable untapped opportunity relative to the largest global managers' more developed placement relationships.

For managers, engaging a firm within this grouping can make sense where dedicated attention and sector-specific expertise matter more than the broadest possible geographic coverage.

For the broader advisor landscape, this grouping's continued growth is closely tied to the expansion of mid-market and emerging private credit managers who represent a fast-growing, still underserved segment of this market.

Several firms within this grouping have grown their own footprint by building deep expertise in one or two private credit strategies, such as direct lending or infrastructure debt, rather than attempting to cover the full strategy spectrum.

For managers, this focused expertise can translate into faster, more targeted investor outreach than a broader generalist firm might provide for a strategy outside its core coverage.

How Firm Type Relates to Manager Need

The institutional investor types each firm type most often serves ultimately determines which advisor a manager should shortlist for a given fundraise or transaction.

A manager with an established institutional investor base pursuing a large, complex fundraise typically benefits most from a global placement advisor or private market specialist with the broadest possible geographic reach.

A manager pursuing a GP-led continuation vehicle or tender offer typically benefits most from a secondary advisory specialist with dedicated transaction structuring capability.

A first-time or mid-market manager typically benefits most from a boutique or credit-focused advisor offering dedicated relationship attention and sector-specific expertise.

For managers, matching firm type to specific fundraise or transaction characteristics, rather than defaulting to the largest or best-known name, is the more useful evaluation approach this page recommends.

For investors, understanding which firm type is representing a given manager provides useful context for evaluating the fundraising or transaction process they are being approached about.

A manager's needs can also change across its own lifecycle, starting with a boutique or credit-focused advisor for a first fund and later engaging a global placement advisor once the platform has scaled toward larger, more complex fundraises.

For the broader market, this progression means firm type is not a permanent categorisation of a manager relationship but a fit assessment that is worth revisiting at each new fundraise or transaction.