Harbour Group Closes On $241M For Fund VI

The St. Louis buyout firm Harbour Group Ltd has gotten off to a quick start for its sixth fund, raising $241.5 million in a first close toward a planned $650 million target, according to a regulatory filing. The new vehicle, Harbour Group Investments VI LP, has a $750 million hard cap, according to a person familiar with the firm’s plans.

Sixteen investors participated in the first close, on July 2, the filing showed.

Harbour Group, founded in 1976, generally seeks platform acquisitions in North American manufacturing and distribution companies with enterprise value or revenue of $30 million to $500 million or EBITDA of $4 million to $60 million, according to its Web site.

Harbour Group raised $500 million for Fund V in 2007, according to the Thomson One database of private companies.

But the firm seems to be maintaining a low profile on the deal front. The last transaction, either on its Web site or in the Buyouts archive, is a January add-on, when a Harbour Group portfolio company, Auto Meter Products of Sycamore, Ill., a maker of data information systems for the automotive aftermarket, acquired ProParts LLC of Baltimore, a maker of automotive sensors and gauges. Terms were not disclosed, but the deal was the fourth add-on for Auto Meter Products since Harbour Group bought it in 2007.

The firm’s most recent exit in the Buyouts archive was its $270 million sale of Haydon Kerk Motion Solutions Inc., a maker of screws, nuts and other components for the aerospace and defense industry, in July 2010 to publicly traded Ametek Inc. of  Berwyn, Pa., a maker of electronic instruments for the aerospace, medical device and food service industries, among others.

A spokesman for Harbour Group declined to make firm executives available to comment.

Known LP investors in Harbour Group funds include MetLife Inc., Phoenix Home Life Mutual Insurance Co. and Virginia Surety Co. Inc., according to Thomson One.