TORONTO, May 8, 2017 – Dawson Partners (“Dawson” or the “Firm”), a private equity firm focused on making preferred equity investments in private equity portfolios, today announced a successful final close for Dawson Portfolio Finance 1 (“PF1”) at its US$400 million hard cap. This is well above its US$300 million target. PF1 received interest from potential investors in excess of the hard cap.

Dawson’s initial investor base includes a diversified base of leading insurance companies, public and corporate pension plans, family offices, financial institutions and individual investors.

Yann Robard, Managing Partner of Dawson, said, “Dawson is extremely grateful for the confidence, conviction and support provided by our initial investors. PF1 achieved oversubscription within two quarters of launching our broad fundraising efforts without the use of a placement agent. We were gratified by the market response to our fundraise, the interest in our product and the quality of our investor base. We are benefiting from a strong pipeline of transactions, excited about the white space opportunity available in the market and look forward to maintaining momentum towards building a high performance organization.”

The Firm also announced the promotion of Rob Gavin to Senior Principal and the appointment of three new professionals to the team including:

• Julian Mirsky joins Dawson as an Associate. Julian previously worked as an Associate in the Industrial Products, Energy and Power Group at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (“OTPP”). Prior to OTPP, he worked in investment banking with Citigroup in London, UK. Julian holds a Master of Science in Finance and Accounting from Trinity College, Dublin and a Bachelor of Commerce from Dalhousie University. 
• Tim Lu joins Dawson as an Analyst. Most recently, Tim worked as an Investment Banking Analyst at Paradigm Capital. Tim holds an Honors Business Administration degree from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. 
• Marilia Bothamley joins Dawson as Controller. Marilia has over 12 years’ experience in private investments operations at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and OTPP. Marilia holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Ryerson University and is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA).

Speaking about the recent promotions and hires, Michael Gubbels, Partner of Dawson, said, “We are delighted to recognize Rob’s early contributions to the Firm with his promotion to Senior Principal. Rob has been an instrumental part of the early successes at Dawson and we look forward to working with Rob in his new and growing role. We are also pleased to expand our investment and operations team with our recent hires. We believe they will add significant value to the organization and be a strong cultural fit.”

Sean Connor, Chief Financial Officer of Dawson, said, “Dawson’s successful debut fundraise is a result of our differentiated strategy, investment team, the early performance of our portfolio and significant support received from our investor base. We are thankful for the support of our limited partner base and focused on continuing to uphold our commitments to our investors.”

Proskauer Rose served as legal counsel for Dawson and the PF1.

About Dawson Partners (“Dawson”)

Dawson is a private equity firm focused on making preferred equity investments in private equity portfolios. Dawson has identified what it believes is a significant and untapped market opportunity in the utilization of a preferred equity structure to generate liquidity on private equity portfolios and/or finance the acquisition of private equity portfolios.  Dawson was formed in 2015 and seeks to provide customized and flexible liquidity solutions for private equity investors looking for alternatives to outright sales of assets or traditional debt financings.