Private Credit Contagion Reaches Private Equity as Partners Group Caps Investor Withdrawals

Partners Group limits redemptions in $8.6B fund, triggering a 17% stock plunge and contagion across private equity giants like KKR and Blackstone.

The stress that has been simmering in private credit markets for months has now infected private equity. Partners Group became the latest poster child for liquidity risk on Wednesday when it capped redemptions in its $8.6 billion Global Value SICAV, sending its shares into a record 17.25% intraday nosedive. The move confirmed what many market participants had feared: the backwash from troubled credit funds is crossing into equity-type vehicles, and no one is immune.

The Zug-based asset manager limited quarterly payouts to 5% of net asset value after withdrawal requests swelled to an estimated 9.8% of NAV in the second quarter. Chief executive David Layton told Bloomberg that the outflows were concentrated in Asia and Australia, where wealthy individual clients — who make up about a fifth of the firm’s platform assets — reacted more nervously than institutional investors. He stressed that 80% of the investor base remains long-term oriented, but acknowledged the cap was necessary to preserve orderly liquidity. The fund’s organic liquidity stands at a comfortable 15% of NAV, though the move itself signals strain.

Compounding the redemption drama, short-seller Grizzly Research published a report in late April accusing Partners Group of systematic overvaluation in its evergreen funds, with one cited professor likening the situation to the Wirecard scandal. The firm dismissed the allegations as "reckless, defamatory and deeply misleading" and is exploring legal options. Layton admitted the report "certainly doesn’t help", though he stopped short of linking it directly to the redemption spike.

The market’s verdict was brutal. Partners Group stock hit a low of CHF 18.5 billion in market cap, closing at €755.00 in euro terms — a 15.79% drop from the previous day’s close of €896.60. Year-to-date losses now stand at 30.86%. Technically, the stock is deeply oversold: the RSI sits at 20.6, and the price is 27.87% below its 200-day moving average.

The fallout ricocheted across the private equity landscape. KKR fell more than 4%, while Carlyle Group plunged over 5%. Blackstone and Ares Management each shed around 4%, and Blue Owl Capital gave up more than 3%. In Europe, EQT dropped over 6% in Stockholm, CVC Capital Partners slid 5.8%, and Bridgepoint Group lost 4%. Vontobel analyst Andreas Venditti summed up the sentiment: the moves imply that investors see the Global Value redemptions as “just the beginning, with contagion spreading to other vehicles.”

What makes this case particularly unsettling is that it exposes the structural fragility of evergreen funds — vehicles that promise liquidity for illiquid assets. Partners Group runs such products across private equity, private credit, infrastructure, real estate and royalties, with total assets under management of $184.9 billion as of end-2025. Private equity accounts for 46.4% of the total, private credit for 21.7%. The Global Value SICAV represents only about 4.8% of group AUM, but its troubles have tarnished the broader model. Bloomberg has already reported that Apollo Global Management and BlackRock have also capped redemptions in their private credit offerings, suggesting the problem is systemic.

Attention now shifts to July, when Partners Group will publish its AuM update as of June 30. The firm targets gross new client inflows of $26 billion to $32 billion for the full year. Whether the redemption cap and the short-seller attack have eroded investor confidence will be visible then. Analysts at Citigroup and UBS are already flagging the possibility that consensus estimates may need revision. For a company that built its growth story on the promise of seamless evergreen capital, the plot twist has arrived.