Swiss private markets specialist Partners Group reported record first-half fundraising of USD 16 billion, lifting assets under management to USD 186 billion at the end of June, up from USD 174 billion a year earlier.

The Zug-based firm also invested USD 9 billion on behalf of clients while generating USD 9 billion in realizations during the period. Despite continued geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty, Partners Group reaffirmed its full-year fundraising guidance of USD 26 billion to USD 32 billion.

Selective on New Investments

Chief Executive David Layton said the firm continued to benefit from strong demand across both existing and new clients.

«We are pleased to report record client demand as our differentiated offering and track record continues to attract new and existing clients», he said.

Layton cautioned, however, that the investment environment remains challenging, particularly in private equity, where valuations continue to be demanding. As a result, the firm is maintaining a highly selective investment approach while continuing to build its transaction pipeline.

Infrastructure Leads Fundraising

Infrastructure accounted for the largest share of new client commitments at USD 6.1 billion, followed by private credit with USD 3.9 billion and private equity with USD 3.1 billion.

More than half of all new capital came through bespoke solutions, while mandates and evergreen strategies each contributed roughly one quarter of fundraising. The firm said strategic partnerships with major financial institutions are expected to support further growth in its evergreen platform over the medium term.

Overall client demand for evergreen products totaled USD 4.2 billion. However, as redemptions reached USD 3.8 billion, net inflows were only modestly positive. Seventy-nine percent of all redemptions came from three established evergreen strategies.

The firm has already received more than USD 1 billion of additional redemption requests for the second half of the year. Over the medium term, management modeled potential cumulative net outflows of between USD 10 billion and USD 20 billion from the three mature strategies, stressing that this represents a conservative planning scenario rather than a forecast.

Executives emphasized that newer evergreen products and a broader product offering are expected to offset much of the slowdown over time. Evergreen vehicles now account for approximately 30 percent of the firm’s total assets under management.

Performance Fees to Remain Soft

Among its largest exits was the sale of Nordic data center operator atNorth, which generated annualized returns of more than 30 percent and a 2.5x multiple on invested capital for clients.

Nevertheless, the company expects performance fees to account for less than 20 percent of first-half revenues, below its long-term target range, reflecting lower direct exit activity and weaker performance across several mature evergreen strategies.

Based on its current exit pipeline, Partners Group expects performance income for the full year to recover to around the lower end of its long-term target range of 25 to 40 percent of total revenues.

In early June, Partners Group capped redemptions from an open-ended private equity fund with approximately USD 8.6 billion in assets, following a sharp increase in investor withdrawal requests. Shortly afterward, it emerged that similar measures were being prepared for a larger U.S. fund, triggering significant uncertainty across the market.

As a result, Partners Group’s share price temporarily lost about one-third of its value.