The sell-off in Partners Group shares has accelerated to fresh multi-year lows, with the stock touching €696 on Thursday. That marks a decline of more than 25% over the past month and roughly 36% since the start of the year. At the centre of the storm is a two-pronged attack on the Swiss asset manager: a wave of redemption requests in its evergreen fund range and a blistering critique from US short-seller Grizzly Research.
Senior executives have been forced onto the front foot. Chairman Steffen Meister insists the strategy will not change, arguing that 80% of the client base is institutional and that the outflows are largely coming from Asian retail investors. CEO David Layton has defended the internal payout limit of 5% of net asset value per quarter, which was triggered after redemption requests for the Global Value SICAV reached nearly 10% of NAV in the second quarter. He flatly denied rumours of a complete fund freeze, describing the portfolios as liquid and healthy. Since inception, he noted, the affected funds have quintupled in value.
Grizzly Research, the short-seller that published its critical report in April, has questioned whether up to 40% of the evergreen fund’s investments are materially overvalued and drew an incendiary comparison to Wirecard. Partners Group has fired back with a threatened lawsuit. The legal fight adds another layer of uncertainty to a stock that already looks battered by analyst downgrades.
Despite the carnage, the sell-side remains mostly loyal. Six of 13 analysts rate the shares a Buy, seven say Hold, and none recommend selling. The median 12-month price target still stands at CHF 966, well above current levels. However, several houses have slashed their estimates. Octavian cut its target to CHF 1,175 but kept a Buy; Bank of America lowered to CHF 850 and Jefferies to CHF 760, both with Hold ratings. Earnings per share forecasts for 2026 and 2027 have been cut by 10% to 22% across the board, reflecting weaker growth in assets under management and lower performance fees.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Partners Group?
Partners Group is not waiting for the dust to settle. It has proposed splitting its London-listed trust PGPE into participation shares and realisation shares, with the latter capped at 30% of issued capital — worth around €250 million at full exercise. Shareholders will vote on the restructuring at an extraordinary general meeting, with the new structure pencilled in for the fourth quarter of 2026. Separately, on 21 May the group launched a “Total Return Strategy” that targets lower leverage, holding periods of up to 12 years and regular distributions, promising an initial dividend yield of 5% to 8%. The strategy focuses on industrials, logistics, healthcare and consumer goods.
Management is sticking to its 2026 guidance of gross new money inflows between $26 billion and $32 billion, and a long-term target of $450 billion in AuM by 2033. At the end of 2025, AuM stood at just under $185 billion. The company concedes that the evergreen platform could shave one to two percentage points off net AuM growth in the second half of 2026, with a similar effect in 2027.
All eyes now turn to 15 July, when Partners Group releases its half-year results and an update on assets under management. If the AuM figure slips below the $185 billion mark, the pressure on the board will intensify — and the short-seller, with its litigation still pending, will be watching closely.
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