Twenty-five years in the secondary market is what Cari Lodge carries into Aqualis Partners, the private equity secondaries firm she founded in Darien, Connecticut in 2025. On July 20, 2026, Aqualis named Hong Pan and Steve Talbot as partners. Pan and Talbot had worked alongside Lodge in the secondaries space before Aqualis existed, a history the firm frames as a reunion of a longtime secondaries team.
The team's composition
Private equity secondaries teams are built on relationship density. Deal sourcing depends on LP networks and GP contacts assembled over years. Lodge's 25-year track record in the space predates Aqualis by more than two decades.
Pan and Talbot join at the partner level, placing investment decisions in experienced hands from day one. Their prior work with Lodge in the secondaries market means the Aqualis team shares institutional history that a first-time assembly would take years to develop.
What Aqualis does
Aqualis Partners buys existing limited partner fund interests and participates in GP-led transactions where managers restructure portfolios into continuation vehicles. Both deal types require accurate pricing on illiquid underlying positions, a capability built through experience across multiple market cycles.
Lodge founded Aqualis in 2025. Pan and Talbot's arrival as partners in July 2026 brings the firm's named senior team to three practitioners with prior shared experience in the secondary market.