Fundraising

HarbourVest smashes target to close Dover Street X on hard-cap

The investment firm has collected 70% more for its latest fund than its 2015-vintage predecessor.

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HarbourVest Partners has become the latest manager to close a multibillion fund since the onset of the coronavirus crisis, with the close of its latest flagship secondaries fund.

The Boston-headquartered alternatives manager has held the final close on its $8.1 billion hard-cap for Dover Street X, according to a statement. The figure is more than 70 percent larger than its predecessor and makes it the seventh-largest pool of capital raised for secondaries.

The fund was oversubscribed.

“Nearly 35 years after our first secondary transaction, it is exciting to close the 10th fund in our Dover Street program,” said managing director Jeff Keay in the statement. “We’ve completed more than 500 transactions over the past three decades, providing our investors with high-performing, mature, global portfolios of private market assets.”

Secondaries Investor reported in mid-2018 that the firm was coming back to market seeking as much as $6.5 billion, including co-investments and separately managed accounts.

Investors in Dover Street X include State of Michigan Retirement Systems, which committed $150 million; Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds, which committed $100 million; and Nebraska Investment Council and New Hampshire Retirement System, which each committed $50 million, according to Secondaries Investor data.

Deals that HarbourVest has closed so far this year include the acquisition of a $1.5 billion portfolio of private equity stakes from the DeVos family office Ottawa Avenue Private Capital and a $600 million yuan-to-dollar restructuring involving Chinese manager IDG Capital.

The 2015-vintage Dover Street IX raised $4.77 billion against a target of $3.6 billion. The fund had a net total value-to-paid-in of 1.34x and net internal rate of return of 23.8 percent as of 31 March, according to documents prepared for Nevada System of Higher Education.

At least $52.4 billion was raised by secondaries funds in the first half of 2020, exceeding all full-year totals.