AIG and CVC form $3.5bn tie-up for credit and secondaries vehicle

American International Group (AIG) and CVC Capital Partners have agreed a multi-faceted strategic alliance that repositions how a large global insurer will access private markets. The arrangement combines a cornerstone commitment into a new evergreen secondaries vehicle with bespoke separately managed accounts (SMAs) across CVC’s credit franchise, together amounting to up to $3.5 billion of potential capital flows.

Under the terms, AIG will seed CVC’s private equity secondaries evergreen platform with as much as $1.5 billion of legacy private equity exposure. That seed portfolio is intended to give immediate scale to CVC’s secondaries vehicle and to allow AIG to streamline and monetise legacy positions more efficiently while preserving long-term exposure characteristics.

In parallel, AIG has signalled an allocation of up to $2 billion to SMAs and commingled funds managed by CVC Capital Partners, with an initial deployment target of roughly $1 billion through the coming year. These mandates are tailored to meet the insurer’s capital, regulatory and return objectives and tap CVC’s origination and credit-structuring capabilities across Europe and North America.

Rob Lucas, Chief Executive Officer of CVC Capital Partners, described the pact as proof of the firm’s capacity to deliver customised solutions for large institutional balance sheets and said the deal accelerates CVC’s push into evergreen formats across private credit and private equity secondaries.

Peter Zaffino, Chairman and CEO of AIG, framed the partnership as a strategic step in active portfolio management, enabling the insurer to work with a scale manager on differentiated private market access while addressing capital efficiency. He highlighted the value of bespoke SMA structures for insurance balance sheets seeking predictable regulatory treatment.

The move reflects a broader trend: insurance companies and other long-duration investors have been steadily raising allocations to private assets in search of yield and diversification. Industry estimates show private markets allocations for large insurers have expanded from low single digits a decade ago to a materially larger share of investment portfolios today, driving demand for tailored mandates and secondary liquidity solutions.

For CVC, the combination of a seeded secondaries vehicle and large SMA commitments strengthens its product shelf and deepens strategic ties with institutional clients. For AIG, the arrangement provides a route to crystallise value from legacy private equity holdings while redeploying capital into credit strategies aligned with its risk and capital framework.

Operational and governance details, including timing of transfers into the secondaries vehicle and the precise structure of the SMAs, will be finalised in coming months as the partners build out the platform and execution roadmap.