Harvest Partners, a New York-based private equity investment firm specializing in management buyouts and recapitalizations of middle-market companies, announced that it held a final closing on a new $1.1 billion fund, Harvest Partners VI (HP VI). Credit Suisse Securities (USA) served as an exclusive placement agent for HP VI.

HP VI will continue the firm’s 31-year history of partnering with management teams to invest in North American companies in the business and industrial services, manufacturing and distribution, healthcare, midstream energy, and consumer products and retail sectors.

The closing of HP VI increases the amount of invested and committed capital under Harvest’s management to approximately $2 billion. Investors in HP VI include domestic and international public and private pension funds, fund of funds, insurance companies, a sovereign wealth fund, financial institutions and individuals. HP VI included many existing investors from previous Harvest funds and also a number of first-time investors. To date, HP VI has invested in the acquisition of DTI, one of the largest independent providers of outsourced litigation support services, and the acquisition of Driven Brands, Inc., a leading franchisor in the automotive aftermarket services industry. Both investments were completed in late 2011.

“We are pleased and grateful that many of our existing limited partners are continuing to invest with Harvest in our new fund. We thank them for their loyalty and confidence in our ongoing ability to identify and invest in attractive middle market companies. Our goal is to work closely with the management teams of these businesses to build them into well-positioned, leading companies in their industries, which in turn generate attractive investment returns for our limited partners. We look forward to deploying the new fund in the same disciplined and focused manner as our prior funds,” said Harvest senior managing director Thomas Arenz.

Harvest’s previous fund, Harvest Partners V, closed in 2007 at $816 million.

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison acted as legal counsel for HP VI.