Partners Group Keeps Deploying Capital Even as Fee Income and Share Price Sag

Vontobel cut its price target to CHF 860 as Partners Group trimmed 2026 performance-fee guidance, even as dealmaking and fundraising stay strong.

Partners Group is doing two things at once, and the market is only paying attention to one of them. While the Swiss asset manager continues to strike large private-market deals, its stock sits close to a 52-week low, weighed down by a sharp drop in performance fees and a cautious analyst revision.

Vontobel cut its price target on the Zug-based firm last Thursday from CHF 940 to CHF 860. The shares changed hands at EUR 682.60 on the day, a modest 0.5 percent decline, and closed Friday at EUR 686.40 — just 0.5 percent above their 52-week trough of EUR 682.80. Since the start of the year the stock has shed 35 percent, and it trails its 200-day moving average by roughly 24 percent. An RSI of 32.7 points to oversold conditions, though that alone says nothing about a reversal.

Why the fee engine is sputtering

The caution follows half-year results published in early September. Revenue for the first six months fell 7 percent to CHF 1.12 billion, dragged down by a 39 percent collapse in performance fees to CHF 216 million. EBITDA slipped 9 percent to CHF 706 million, while the EBITDA margin held steady at 63 percent. Management fee income, adjusted for currency effects, actually rose 12 percent to CHF 905 million — not enough to offset the performance-fee shortfall.

Partners Group responded by trimming its own guidance. Performance income is now expected to make up just 20 to 25 percent of total revenue in 2026, down from an earlier target range of 25 to 40 percent. The forecast for capital commitments, by contrast, was left untouched at USD 26 billion to 32 billion.

That guidance cut matters because carried interest has long been a central pillar of earnings in private markets. Media reports suggest redemption limits of 5 percent per quarter on mature evergreen funds could stay in place through 2028. Such liquidity gates cushion against sudden capital flight, but they also crimp flexibility and raise questions about how long investor money stays locked up.

Deals keep flowing

Against that backdrop, the investment machine has hardly stalled. In early August the group agreed two transactions. It entered exclusive talks to acquire a majority stake in Aroma-Zone, the French natural cosmetics brand currently owned by Eurazeo, in a deal the Financial Times valued at around EUR 2 billion. Separately, it struck an agreement to take a majority position in AVK Power Solutions, a supplier of power systems for data centers, committing more than USD 1 billion in equity.

At the same time, Partners Group is exiting older holdings. At the end of July it sold its stake in Polish convenience retailer Zabka to Canada's Alimentation Couche-Tard, a takeover that values the company at roughly USD 8.6 billion. Partners Group and other major shareholders holding about 57 percent of the stock combined agreed to tender their shares.

Fundraising, meanwhile, is running hot. Commitments climbed 31 percent in the first half to a record USD 16 billion, and the full-year target of USD 26 billion to 32 billion was reaffirmed.

New offices, new leadership

Geographic expansion continues as well. Last Thursday the firm opened a Stockholm office headed by Carina Spitzkopf to deepen its Nordic presence. A leadership transition is also on the horizon, with a change at the top due around the turn of 2027.

For investors, the picture is genuinely mixed. The Aroma-Zone, AVK Power Solutions and Zabka transactions show a private-equity house still actively rotating capital between mature and new holdings. The lowered earnings guidance and the persistent pressure on the share price show that market confidence has yet to return.