As the market for "secondaries" continues to expand and firms specialising in the field broaden distribution to areas such as private clients, one player in the sector has opened a Japan office.

UK-based Coller Capital, which deals with private market secondaries investments, has set up an office in Tokyo – its sixth Asia-Pacific location.

As part of the development, the firm said Hisashi Tanaka has joined as head of Japan private wealth in the company’s private wealth secondaries solutions (PWSS) team, and reports to Pak-Seng Lai, head of PWSS distribution for APAC. The office began operations on 12 November; Tanaka was appointed to his role on 1 May.

“Secondaries” refers to how investors can buy and sell pre-existing investments in private equity, credit, infrastructure, forms of real estate, and other assets.

The sector enables holders of these relatively illiquid assets to adjust exposures and has grown rapidly in recent years.

According to US-headquartered investment banking firm Jeffries, the global secondary market volume of $103 billion surged by 51 per cent from $68 billion in H1 2024. "This represents the largest year-over-year H1 volume increase and the most active six-month period in market history," it said in a report earlier this year.

PWSS
Launched in 2023, PWSS provides eligible private wealth investors access to Coller Capital’s evergreen funds, Coller International Secondaries Private Equity Fund (CollerEquity) and Coller Private Credit Secondaries (CollerCredit). Led by Peter Kim, partner and head of Asia, Coller Capital has operated in the region in Hong Kong, Beijing, Seoul, Melbourne, Singapore and Tokyo as the latest addition. Coller Capital spoke to this news service in July about the sector, how it acts as a diversifier and returns source.

Hisashi Tanaka has more than two decades of fundraising experience in Japan, and joined Coller Capital from New York Life Investments, where he served as head of retail distribution, overseeing both publicly offered mutual funds and private assets. Prior to this, he held senior retail sales positions at Schroders, BNP Paribas, PineBridge, and Deutsche AM. He began his career at SMBC Nikko Securities as a Japanese equity analyst.

Tanaka is joined by Keisuke Kagawa, who is joining as vice president in the Japan PWSS team. He previously worked at StepStone Group as vice president in the business development division. Earlier in his career, Kagawa had stints at Mitsubishi UFJ Alternative Investments, PricewaterhouseCoopers Japan and Nomura Securities.