Partners Group Bets on Data Centers and Secondaries While Exit Drought Erodes Fee Income

Partners Group deepens its atNorth data-center stake and adds a real-estate secondaries program as performance fees fall 39% and shares sit near a 52-week low.

Partners Group is pushing ahead on two fronts that, on the surface, have little in common: a deeper commitment to Nordic data-center operator atNorth and a new secondaries program designed to give investors in its evergreen real-estate funds a structured route out. Both moves land at an awkward moment for the Swiss asset manager, whose share price is hovering barely above its yearly floor as a stalled exit market eats into the profit-sharing fees that once flattered its earnings.

The atNorth expansion runs counter to the broader private-equity mood. Deal volume across the industry fell 34% in the first half of 2026, according to PwC, even as the average transaction size quadrupled — a clear sign that buyers are concentrating their fire on fewer, bigger targets. Data centers have emerged as one of the rare pockets of steady demand, buoyed by the infrastructure buildout underpinning artificial intelligence. Partners Group's decision to add to its atNorth stake fits a strategy of leaning into structurally growing niches while traditional exit channels for PE portfolios remain, in PwC's assessment, clogged.

That backlog of unsold assets is precisely what has been dragging on the firm's results. Half-year figures published in early September made for grim reading: revenues slipped 7% to CHF 1.12 billion, EBITDA dropped 9% to CHF 706 million, and performance fees — the carried-interest-style income tied to successful exits — tumbled 39%. Assets under management nonetheless edged up to $186 billion at the end of June, from $185 billion at the close of 2025.

Management responded by cutting its guidance for the performance-fee share of 2026 revenue to a range of 20% to 25%, down from an earlier target of 25% to 40%. The outlook for new capital commitments of $26 billion to $32 billion for the year was left untouched.

Evergreen Funds Under Strain

The secondaries initiative addresses a different pressure point. Evergreen vehicles are marketed on the promise that investors can redeem continuously rather than locking up capital for years, as in a classic private-equity fund. That flexibility has become a liability of late: Partners Group has already acknowledged grappling with uncertainty around redemptions from these open-ended structures. A secondaries program for real-estate stakes is meant to provide liquidity by offering a structured exit channel, sparing the firm from fire-selling the underlying properties.

It is more than a product tweak. In its half-year presentation, Partners Group reported record fundraising but conceded that the timing of exits and the trajectory of performance income remain under scrutiny. Alongside the guidance cut, it reaffirmed its full-year outlook and projected solid net growth in assets under management despite the redemption worries. What the secondaries program does not fix is the earnings weakness itself — it smooths the liquidity problem that flows from it, not the delayed exits behind it.

A Listed Subsidiary Offers a Quiet Counterpoint

One modest bright spot comes from the group's listed private-equity subsidiary, whose net asset value per share rose 0.1% in July to EUR 11.58, against total assets of EUR 771.26 million. The move is marginal, but it at least signals no further deterioration at the portfolio level.

The stock, meanwhile, tells its own story. At EUR 662.00 it trades just 1.1% above its 52-week low of EUR 654.60. On the day the half-year numbers landed, the shares lost more than 7%, and the downtrend has held since — the stock closed at EUR 664.00 on Tuesday, down 2.6% from the previous session, bringing its year-to-date decline to 37%. Investors are plainly pricing in the combination of a weakened performance-fee engine and redemption pressure from the open-ended funds.

Into this unsettled backdrop steps a leadership transition: Roberto Cagnati and Juri Jenkner are set to take over as co-CEOs, inheriting a market where exits and performance fees remain hard to come by. The atNorth deal at least demonstrates that Partners Group intends to keep deploying capital selectively rather than retreating wholesale. Whether that conviction can outrun the exit drought is the question the new duo will have to answer.