HarbourVest opens Australia office
HarbourVest Partners has opened an office in Sydney on the back of claimed recent success in cultivating institutional and private wealth clients in Australia and New Zealand.
The firm has been active in Asia since 1984 and established an on-the-ground presence in 1996 in Hong Kong. Sydney is its sixth office in the region, joining Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, and Singapore, as well as Hong Kong. Singapore was the most recent addition, opening last year.
HarbourVest has been working with Australian and New Zealand investors for over 35 years, raising USD 6.9bn to date from approximately 40 superannuation funds, endowments, other institutional clients, and family offices. Growth has accelerated in recent years with 13 new clients and USD 1.8bn in assets under management (AUM) committed since 2019.
The new office will be led by Warwick Mancini, who assumes responsibility for business development activities and client relationships. This involves offering local investors access to primary funds, secondaries, co-investment, real assets and infrastructure and private credit.
In addition, HarbourVest invests in Australia from its global funds. Recent activity includes backing Potentia Capital’s second fund and then teaming up with the business services-focused GP on an attempted take-private of productivity software provider Nitro Software. The firm previously invested alongside Potentia in payroll software player Ascender, which was exited last year.
“The establishment of a local Australian presence reflects the significant growth of this region as well as the increased interest in the alternative assets classes we observe among investors in Australia and New Zealand,” said Peter Wilson, a managing director at HarbourVest, in a statement.
HarbourVest had more than AUD 100bn as of June and employed more than 190 investment professionals across 13 offices globally. Earlier this year, the firm closed its latest flagship private equity fund-of-funds, which targets Asia Pacific and Europe, on USD 1.6bn, beating a target of USD 1.25bn.
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