Company Reports

Partners Group has built a private markets platform around client solutions rather than fund sales. About 37% of its assets under management sit in bespoke mandates for large institutions. A further 30% is in semiliquid evergreen funds for wealthy and smaller investors. For both groups, the firm spans private equity, credit, real estate, infrastructure, and royalties.

Partners Group's first-half 2026 assets under management were broadly flat at $186 billion as maturing funds and client redemptions absorbed the record $16 billion of new assets raised in the half. Fresh guidance points to around $12 billion of evergreen outflows over the next 18 months.

Partners Group has built a private markets platform around client solutions rather than fund sales. About 37% of its assets under management sit in bespoke mandates for large institutions. A further 30% is in semiliquid evergreen funds for wealthy and smaller investors. For both groups, the firm spans private equity, credit, real estate, infrastructure, and royalties.

Partners Group gated its USD 8.6 billion Global Value SICAV evergreen fund on June 3 after second-quarter redemption requests neared 10% of net asset value. Shares fell as much as 17%, their worst day since listing in 2006. The fund accounts for about 5% of group assets under management.

Partners Group raised $12 billion in new assets during the first half of 2025, taking its assets under management to $174 billion. Mandates and semi-liquid funds drove 74% of inflows while private credit made up 48% of new assets. Opportunities to exit investments remained scarce.

Most private market firms focus on dealmaking, with less consideration of clients' risk/reward or liquidity needs. Partners Group took a different approach. Around 40% of its AUM comes from separately managed, bespoke mandates developed for large institutional clients, where it has the investment, capital market, and legal expertise to structure creative alternative vehicles. Partners Group is also one of the pioneers and market leaders in semiliquid funds that enable individual investors to get exposure to private market investments. Semiliquid funds account for around 30% of AUM. For both mandate and semiliquid clients, Partners Group offers relative value strategies that allow it to make tactical asset allocation decisions across the full spectrum of private market assets: private equity, private credit, real estate, and infrastructure.

Narrow-moat Partners Group ended 2024 with assets under management, or AUM, below expectations and its own guidance, reaching USD 152 billion, a modest 4% year-over-year increase. Despite this transitional year, the company expects a rebound in dealmaking and anticipates adding USD 22 billion-USD 27 billion of AUM in 2025, offset by USD 9 billion-USD 10 billion in tail-downs from maturing mandates. Given expectations for a more active market in 2025, we view Partners Group's guidance as reasonable, though we await the publication of full financial statements to confirm our outlook. We keep our fair value estimate of CHF 1,240 per share unchanged.

Narrow-moat Partners Group's results for the first half of 2024 confirmed that the firm is on track to meet our expectations for fiscal 2024. Partners also reaffirmed their longer-term guidance. The market expected more, with the shares closing 9% down on the day of the results.

We initiate coverage with narrow moat ratings on all three major European-based private market firms: CVC Capital Partners PLC, EQT AB, and Partners Group Holdings AG. We expect all three firms to remain highly profitable, and the private market industry benefits from established secular growth trends. However, the eye-watering mid-20s EV/EBITDA multiples the firms trade at currently suggest that the market already prices in these strong fundamentals. We do not believe that higher interest rates mark a structural change in the industry, but we expect near-term dealmaking to remain muted.

Most private market firms focus on dealmaking, with less consideration of clients' risk/reward or liquidity needs. Partners Group took a different approach. Around 40% of its AUM comes from separately managed, bespoke mandates developed for large institutional clients, where it has the investment, capital market and legal expertise to structure creative alternative vehicles. Partners Group is also one of the pioneers and market leaders in semi-liquid funds that enable individual investors to get exposure to private market investments. Semi-liquid funds account for around 30% of AUM. For both mandate and semi-liquid clients, Partners Group offers relative value strategies that allow it to make tactical asset allocation decisions across the full spectrum of private market assets: private equity, private credit, real estate, and infrastructure.