A liquidity crunch in Partners Group’s flagship semi-open-ended funds has sent the Swiss asset manager’s shares to their steepest single-day slide since its 2006 market debut. The stock plunged as much as 16.33% in early June after redemption requests for the Luxembourg-based Global Value SICAV hit roughly 9.8% of net asset value in a single quarter — an extraordinary level for such vehicles. That single-session rout wiped out more than a sixth of the company’s market capitalization.
The selling pressure has not let up. By Thursday, the stock stood at €754.60, pushing its year-to-date decline to nearly 31% and leaving it almost 38% below its 52-week high. The current price is only about 3% above the trough of €733, with the relative strength index at 25 — deep in technically oversold territory.
Partners Group has been forced to activate a gating mechanism that caps payouts at roughly 62% of requested redemptions. The move comes despite the fund sitting on liquidity equivalent to 15% of NAV and an undrawn credit line of the same size. A US-based vehicle is also facing exit requests of around 6% of NAV, and three other evergreen funds with combined assets of roughly $9.7 billion are expected to see second-quarter redemption rates of 3.5% to 5%. The entire evergreen platform — spanning more than 30 funds across five asset classes and over $56 billion in total assets — is under strain.
The crisis is not confined to Partners Group. Rivals Apollo Global Management, KKR, BlackRock and Blue Owl have all imposed redemption restrictions on their own semi-liquid structures in recent weeks, underscoring a broader loss of confidence in the valuation model underpinning private-market products for wealthy individuals.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Partners Group?
Analysts are split on the severity of the damage. Oddo BHF downgraded the stock from “Outperform” to “Neutral” and slashed its price target to 920 francs, citing a deteriorated risk-reward profile. Vontobel cut its target to 960 francs from 1,200. Julius Baer’s Roger Degen reduced his target to 1,200 francs from 1,400 but continues to count Partners Group among his top picks. The Zürcher Kantonalbank’s Daniel Regli called the market reaction “exaggerated,” a view echoed by analysts at Octavian and the Helvetische Bank.
Co-founder Fredy Gantner acknowledged communication failures, describing the information missteps as a “painful lesson.” He told the SonntagsZeitung that the firm needs to be “definitely better and more proactive” in its messaging, but maintained the stock’s hammering was a “massive overreaction” and blamed a sector-wide contagion effect. He dismissed allegations from short-seller Grizzly Research and pointed to a strong operating business and a dividend yield of roughly 7%.
Chairman Steffen Meister confirmed that the group’s strategy remains unchanged. Management is sticking with its full-year forecast for gross new client demand of $26 billion to $32 billion, though it warned that net AuM growth from the evergreen platform could be trimmed by 1% to 2% in the second half — and a similar drag may spill into 2027. Analysts at the Zürcher Kantonalbank note that redemptions currently represent less than 1% of total assets under management, which are dominated by institutional investors accounting for about 80% of client money.
Partners Group will publish updated AuM figures on July 15, offering the first concrete look at how real net outflows are weighing on the overall portfolio. The full half-year report is due on September 1. For now, the stock is recovering only a fraction of its losses, and the question hanging over the sector is whether the gating mechanisms that once shielded private-market strategies will now become a permanent drag on investor confidence.
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