Ropes & Gray and Kirkland & Ellis have taken the lead roles on EQT’s acquisition of UK secondaries firm Coller Capital.
The $3.7bn bid was agreed by both parties on Thursday morning (22 January), marking EQT’s entrance into the secondaries market.
Ropes is advising the Swedish private equity house, with private equity partner Shona Ha leading from London, alongside M&A specialist Ariel Deckelbaum and private equity partners Neill Jakobe and Elizabeth Langton in New York.
Ha has worked with EQT in the past, supporting the investment firm on its $14.5bn acquisition of Nord Anglia Education as part of a consortium in March 2025.
Jakobe also has prior experience working with EQT including advising on its joint $3bn takeover of cloud software developer NEOGOV alongside CPP Investments.
Ropes’ connections to EQT are set to be strengthened further with the imminent arrival of the PE firm’s group GC of M&A and investments, Paul Dali, who will join the firm’s private capital transactions practice this year.
Kirkland’s team advising Coller on the EQT deal is led by investment funds partners Andrew Reilly in London, Jordan Murray and Jack Rossman in New York, as well as M&A partner Emma Lange-Novak in Chicago.
Coller is also a longstanding client for Reilly, who advised the PE firm on its $600m joint venture platform with CDC to acquire Indian secondaries in 2018.
More recently, Kirkland also acted for Coller as it invested in a €215m continuation fund to support Motion Equity Partners’ work with Olyos, which was announced in June 2025.
Two leading Nordic firms also advised on the deal, with Sweden’s Vinge acting for EQT and Finland’s Roschier advising Coller.
Coller, which was founded in the UK in 1990, currently manages nearly $50bn in private assets. The firm, self-described as a ‘pioneer’ in the secondaries sector, has invested just under $18bn into private assets since its first transaction in 1996.
Listed in Stockholm, EQT’s acquisition of the British firm will provide it with direct access to the secondaries market, which is anticipated to double by 2030.
In 2025, Evercore estimated that transaction volume in the secondary market exceeded $200bn for the first time, up 41% from the year prior.
EQT’s offer involves a $3.2bn upfront payment for Coller, with $500m to follow based on the firm’s success in the next year.
