HarbourVest Partners has held the final close of Dover Street VIII, a global secondary fund, at USD3.6bn.
The fund closed above its USD3bn target and was oversubscribed. HarbourVest’s prior secondary-focused fund, Dover Street VII, was a USD2.9bn fund.
Dover VIII will make secondary investments in venture capital, leveraged buyout, and other private equity assets, as well as portfolios of operating companies, manager spin-outs, and structured transactions. The investors in Dover VIII include a broad array of institutions such as corporate pensions, public pensions, endowments, Taft Hartley plans, and foundations from around the globe.
Throughout its 27-year history as an active participant in the secondary market, HarbourVest has acquired private equity assets of all stages, types, vintages, and geographies and worked with all types of sellers, including financial institutions, corporations, pension plans, governmental entities, endowments, and family offices.
“Since our first secondary investment in 1986, HarbourVest has helped pioneer the global secondary market,” says Brett Gordon, managing director at HarbourVest Partners. “A critical component of our success is our ability to leverage HarbourVest’s platform of relationships with fund managers across the private markets which give us informed insight into the secondary assets we evaluate. We use this unique perspective to identify attractive assets that offer compelling investment opportunities for our clients. Our team also brings proven experience solving complex problems and creating tailor-made solutions for sellers. This credibility often makes us a preferred counterparty for sellers.”
Dover VIII has already closed on four transactions, the largest of which is the acquisition of the assets of Conversus Capital. At the time of acquisition, Conversus was the world’s largest publicly-traded portfolio of third party private equity funds. The Conversus transaction was announced in July 2012 and completed in December 2012. Dover VIII portfolio has already generated gains as well as early realisations, which have allowed HarbourVest to make an initial distribution to the fund’s investors.
