HarbourVest has held an oversubscribed, hard cap, and final closing of its eleventh private equity secondaries fund, Dover Street XI LP, with $15.1 billion of capital. In addition, the firm held a final close for its Secondary Overflow Fund V LP with an additional $3.4 billion of capital for secondary co-investment opportunities.
Limited partners in the new funds span the globe and consist of corporations, pension funds, endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth funds, and private wealth investors.
Dover XI is expected to make from 40 to 60 investments with an average investment size of $200 million to $400 million with the majority of investments in North American and Europe. The allocation of the fund’s capital will be 70% to 85% to buyouts, 10% to 20% to growth equity and venture, and a reserve of up to 15% for opportunistic investments.
“More than 35 years after our first secondary transaction, the continued success of our secondaries program is a reflection of our team’s dedication to building an investment pipeline that benefits investors across multiple strategies and separately managed accounts,” said John Toomey, a managing director at HarbourVest. “Through our platform approach and access to decades of data across strategies, our firm has deep institutional relationships that position us as a trusted and reliable investment partner.”
Since inception, HarbourVest has invested over $55 billion into almost 650 secondaries transactions balanced between LP-led and GP-led transactions. HarbourVest’s earlier secondaries fund, Dover Street X LP, held a final close in October 2020 with $8.1 billion of capital.
The hard cap close of Dover XI follows strong net IRR performances by earlier Dover funds including Dover IX (2016 vintage) at 65.6%; Dover VIII (2012) at 22.4%; Dover VII (2008) at 9.9%; Dover VI (2005) at 5.0%; and Dover V (2003) at 18.3%. IRR information for Dover X is limited but several limited partners have reported that the fund’s net IRR was in excess of 50% as recently as 2023.
“The secondaries market has grown in both size and complexity, and HarbourVest continues to differentiate ourselves in our ability to deliver customized liquidity solutions to GPs and LPs at scale,” said Jeff Keay, a managing director at HarbourVest. “Our global secondaries team has decades of experience working together, delivering bespoke LP-led and GP-led solutions.”
Boston-headquartered HarbourVest has more than 1,200 employees, including more than 190 investment professionals across Asia, Europe, and the Americas. As of March 2024, the firm had $127 billion in assets under management across a range of strategies including venture capital, buyout, mezzanine debt, credit, and real estate.
© 2024 Private Equity Professional | August 21, 2024
