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Ares Management closed an approximately $850mn single-asset continuation vehicle for Convergint Technologies in 2026, with Leonard Green and Partners leading the transaction. For continuation fund sponsors in 2026, that single deal captures the market’s central mechanics: an established sponsor keeping a favoured asset, a third-party lead investor pricing it, and existing limited partners choosing between cash and continued exposure. GP-led secondary volume hit $115bn in 2025, up 53%, and continuation vehicles, or CVs, made up 89% of that figure, according to CFA Institute citing Jefferies.
The structure is now standard. Identifying which sponsors matter in 2026 is harder than it looks, because the available evidence supports a market map rather than a league table.
No public dataset ranks continuation fund sponsors by transaction count, capital raised or realised performance in a way that would survive scrutiny. What exists is a set of named, verifiable 2026 vehicles and platforms.
A correction is needed before comparing the names: sponsor and lead investor are different roles. The sponsor is the general partner moving assets out of an existing fund into a new one. The lead investor prices the deal and anchors the new vehicle. Leonard Green and Partners appears repeatedly in 2026 activity as a lead investor, not as the originating GP.
| Firm or platform | Role in the evidence | Named vehicle or asset | Supported detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ares Management | Sponsor of single-asset CV | Convergint Technologies | Approximately $850mn commitments, led by Leonard Green |
| Falfurrias | Sponsor initiating single-asset CV | Crosslake | Next growth phase funded through CV led by Leonard Green |
| Behrman Capital | CV manager and sponsor | Behrman Capital CV II L.P. | $250mn fund AUM, final close 1 July 2026 |
| Arctos Partners | CV manager and sponsor | Arctos Keystone Longleaf I CIV, LP | Exposure to a sports and entertainment holding |
| Leonard Green and Sage Equity Investors | Dedicated CV investor and lead investor | Sage I, Convergint, Crosslake | Over $3.6bn committed, primarily to single-asset CVs sponsored by other PE firms |
Distributions as a percentage of NAV have sat below 15% for four consecutive years. Global buyout funds ended 2025 holding roughly 32,000 unsold companies and $3.8tn of unrealised value, according to CFA Institute citing Bain.
That backlog is the engine. When trade sales and IPOs will not clear at acceptable prices, the continuation fund becomes the exit of last resort and, increasingly, of first resort. Continuation funds are estimated to represent around 20% of all private equity exits, although that figure comes from industry and media estimates rather than audited data.
Adoption is near-universal among large sponsors. CFA Institute reports nearly 80% of the top 100 managers by AUM had completed a CV by 2025. Dakota puts the figure at 83% of the top 100 global buyout sponsors, citing Morgan Stanley, and separately estimates $106bn of continuation vehicle transaction volume in 2025, up about 51%. The two volume figures measure slightly different things and should not be added together.
Scale is a weak proxy. A $5bn CV from a mega-fund with a compressed LP election window is worse for investors than a $250mn vehicle with a competitive process and a genuine third-party price. The useful criteria are practical rather than cosmetic:
Ares closed the approximately $850mn single-asset CV for Convergint, with Leonard Green leading. The transaction shows a large alternative manager extending ownership of a named asset through an externally priced vehicle.
Falfurrias used a single-asset continuation fund, again led by Leonard Green, to fund Crosslake’s next growth phase. The deal also shows that middle-market and sector-focused sponsors can access the same structure as the mega-funds, provided they can find institutional lead capital.
Behrman Capital CV II L.P. closed with $250mn in fund AUM and a final close date of 1 July 2026. The vehicle focuses on complex, event-driven, distressed and special situations opportunities across the capital structure in the US. Continuation vehicles are not confined to clean compounders.
Arctos Keystone Longleaf I CIV, LP gives exposure to a sports and entertainment portfolio holding. Sector-specialist CVs, where the buyer universe is narrow, are a real segment of the market.
Sage Equity Investors closed with over $3.6bn of commitments, dedicated primarily to investing in single-asset continuation funds sponsored by private equity firms. Dedicated pools of lead capital change the bargaining dynamic, because a sponsor without one has no independent price reference.
Break the deal into its roles and the structure explains itself. Ares is the sponsor and continuing manager. Convergint is the asset. Leonard Green is the lead investor setting the price and anchoring the new vehicle. Existing LPs in the selling Ares fund face a binary choice: take cash at the transaction price or roll into the CV and stay long the asset.
The lead investor’s presence is the pricing mechanism. Without it, the GP is marking its own asset and asking LPs to accept that mark. Note what is not public here: no valuation multiple, no debt structure and no LP roll percentage. The transaction can therefore be assessed on structure, but not on assumed economics.
Preqin’s data cuts both ways and should be read carefully. The 2023 continuation fund vintage posted a median IRR of 28%, exceeding all private capital, US buyouts and top-quartile private equity in Preqin’s comparison. The 2018 vintage returned 2.14x capital through distributions, ahead of the comparison groups.
Against that, no distributions occurred for 2023 to 2025 vintages across continuation funds, US buyouts, top-quartile PE or all private capital in the same dataset. And for 2018 to 2021 vintages where the comparison is meaningful, parent funds outperformed the newer continuation funds on IRR.
The implication for a rolling LP is uncomfortable. The asset already owned inside the parent fund may have produced better returns than the vehicle the LP is being asked to roll into. The decision should be built as a model, not a judgement call:
A high IRR on a short, marked-up hold is not the same as cash returned. LPs facing denominator pressure should weight DPI heavily.
CFA Institute frames continuation vehicle risk in three categories: structural conflicts, procedural failures and intentional misconduct. The first is inherent. The GP sits on both sides, influencing price, timing, disclosure and its own future fees.
Procedural failures are where deals go wrong in practice. Thin price discovery with a single bidder, election windows too short for a pension board to convene, valuation marks that conveniently support the transfer price, transaction expenses charged to the selling fund and stapled commitments to the sponsor’s next flagship can all affect the economics of the choice presented to LPs.
Test the transfer price against current NAV, trading comps, precedent transactions and any indications from a failed sale process. Where the GP’s own mark is the only reference point, the valuation is circular.
Single-asset vehicles are setting the pace, and the exit backlog gives no reason for that to reverse. Dakota notes 2026 activity spanning buyout, venture and secondaries platforms.
The LP base remains narrow. Around 56% of continuation fund investors tracked by Preqin are pension funds, foundations and endowments, and LPs committed to CFs represent roughly 2% of Preqin’s known LP universe. Geographically, it is an Americas market: 67.4% of the disclosed investor base, against 26.4% in EMEA and 6.2% in APAC. A structure carrying an estimated 20% of exits is funded by a small fraction of institutional capital.
The sponsors worth watching in 2026 are the ones that brought in an unaffiliated lead investor, ran a process with real price tension, and can identify the planned changes in the next ownership period. Ares with Convergint and Falfurrias with Crosslake both carry that validation. Size does not.
An LP that rolls into a continuation vehicle without testing the transfer price has accepted the GP’s mark and reset its fee base at the same time. If the second exit then arrives late or at a lower multiple, there is no recovery mechanism and no counterparty to blame.
P.S. If you are pricing single-asset deals or sitting on the LP side of a roll decision, check out our Premium Resources for LBO and waterfall models, transaction decks and more tools to help you advance your career.
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