Northleaf promotes two in secondaries to MD

Northleaf Capital Partners has promoted two of its secondaries professionals to managing director.

Brad Blowes and Tom Petty, both based in New York, have been promoted in the five-person round, according to a statement.

Blowes, who joined the Toronto-headquartered asset manager in 2014, focuses on the origination, evaluation and monitoring of Northleaf’s private equity secondary and direct investments, according to a statement. Blowes was previously a vice-president at hedge fund service provider CommonWealth Fund Services and a senior associate within the M&A transaction advisory group at Deloitte, according to the firm’s website.

Petty also focuses on origination and monitoring of secondaries and direct investments. He joined Northleaf in 2019 from Adams Street Partners where he was a vice-president working across private credit investments, the firm’s website shows. He was previously an associate in Morgan Stanley’s financial sponsors group.

Northleaf collected $1.3 billion – above its $1.25 billion target – for its latest private equity-focused secondaries fund Northleaf Secondary Partners III last year, Secondaries Investor reported. At that time, the fund was just over 50 percent invested.

Predecessor fund, Northleaf Secondary Partners II, raised $801 million in 2018, according to Secondaries Investor data.

London-based Matthieu Ducharme departed Northleaf last year after a decade with the firm to head up the private equity secondaries business of AXA Investment Managers Prime, the private markets unit of the European insurance group, Secondaries Investor reported.