The secondaries market is booming — and Partners Group is riding that wave even as its flagship vehicles face a liquidity squeeze. The Swiss private-markets specialist has notched $650 million in the first close of its fifth global real estate secondaries program, which targets $1.5 billion in total commitments. The fund invests in income-producing properties through both GP-led and LP-led secondary transactions, with an initial portfolio spanning residential, industrial and hospitality assets across three global funds.
But the launch comes at an inopportune time. The company’s $8.6 billion Global Value SICAV — a Luxembourg-domiciled evergreen fund — received redemption requests totalling 9.8% of net asset value in the latest quarter, nearly double the 5% cap. Partners Group is honoring roughly 62% of those requests, effectively throttling outflows. A separate US-based Delaware evergreen vehicle also breached the threshold, with 6% of NAV in redemptions after the May window.
The pressure is not unique to Partners Group. Apollo Global Management, KKR, BlackRock and Blue Owl have all imposed similar caps on their evergreen vehicles recently as the entire industry contends with a wave of retail-investor redemption demands. The portfolio companies are still performing — both funds have roughly quintupled invested capital since inception and realised about 15% this year — but the mismatch between investor patience and quarterly liquidity windows has created friction.
The stock has taken a beating. Shares closed at €767.00 on Friday, up 1.43% on the day but down roughly 30% since the start of the year. At one point this week they hit their lowest level since April 2020. The relative strength index sits at 28.7, deep in oversold territory, and the stock is 37% below its 52-week high of €1,213.50. The selloff has been exacerbated by a short-seller attack from Grizzly Research, which compared Partners Group to Wirecard and questioned its valuation practices. The company has sued Grizzly, calling the report “frivolous, defamatory and highly misleading.”
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Partners Group?
Management is fighting back with its own capital. Over the past few weeks, the executive team has bought more than 20 million Swiss francs’ worth of shares. In early June, Partners Group opened a special trading window to allow employees to top up their holdings. Co-founder Fredy Gantner has pointed to a record year and a dividend yield of around 7%, stressing that roughly 80% of the group’s $185 billion in assets under management comes from long-term institutional investors — not the retail base that is driving the redemption wave.
The company is sticking with its 2026 guidance for gross new inflows of $26 billion to $32 billion. However, net AuM growth in the second half of the year will be trimmed by one to two percentage points because of the redemptions, with potential knock-on effects into 2027. Since management fees are tied directly to the asset base, that is no rounding error. On the brighter side, Partners Group has made clear it is not imposing additional liquidity restrictions on its evergreen funds, noting that both vehicles remain open for new subscriptions and are supported by ongoing distributions and undrawn credit lines.
The next checkpoint arrives on July 15, when Partners Group publishes its regular AuM update for the end of June. That reading will show whether institutional inflows are sufficient to offset the retail outflows. The full half-year report is due on September 1 — by then, the market will know whether the stock’s oversold signal was a genuine entry point or just another false dawn.
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