Partners Group Piles Into Data Centres and Cosmetics as Fee Income Slips

Partners Group acquires Aroma-Zone and AVK Power Solutions, reinvests in atNorth, as shares fall 31% YTD amid lower performance fees.

The Zug-based private markets firm is making a statement with its cheque book even as its share price nurses deep losses. Partners Group has struck two acquisitions in quick succession — a majority stake in French natural cosmetics maker Aroma-Zone and a $1bn-plus equity commitment to AVK Power Solutions, a supplier of power infrastructure for data centres — while separately confirming it will retain a roughly ten percent slice of Icelandic data-centre operator atNorth following the sale of control to CPP Investments and Equinix.

The atNorth reinvestment, executed through the firm's infrastructure secondaries strategy, came after a transaction valuing the business at around $4bn, backed by a financing package of just over $4bn. atNorth operates eight data centres with more than 1.5 gigawatts of secured capacity across the Nordic region. The move lets Partners Group recycle capital from a mature asset while keeping a foothold in a sector supercharged by artificial-intelligence demand — a template the firm will be eager to repeat.

A Consumer Bet to Balance the Portfolio

The Aroma-Zone deal, struck after exclusive negotiations, values the natural-cosmetics group at roughly €2bn according to the Financial Times. Sellers Eurazeo are handing over control to Partners Group, which is betting on steady consumer demand as a counterweight to its infrastructure-heavy deal flow.

The AVK Power Solutions acquisition, meanwhile, targets the build-out of digital infrastructure directly, with Partners Group committing more than $1bn in equity alongside debt financing. Together, the two purchases underscore a strategy of directing capital toward structurally growing niches — even as the firm's own earnings picture darkens.

The Numbers Behind the Pressure

Partners Group's first-half 2026 results make for sobering reading. Revenues fell 7 percent to CHF 1.12bn, EBITDA dropped 9 percent to CHF 706m, and profit declined 13 percent to CHF 502m. The culprit was performance income, which collapsed 39 percent to CHF 216m — now representing just 19 percent of total revenue.

Management income tells a different story, rising 12 percent in currency-adjusted terms to CHF 905m, evidence that the core asset-management engine still runs smoothly. Assets under management reached $186bn.

For the full year 2026, the firm reaffirmed its guidance for capital commitments of $26bn to $32bn but trimmed its expected range for the performance-fee share to 20 to 25 percent, having previously guided toward a lower end of 25 percent within a broader 25-to-40 percent band.

A Stock Still Searching for Its Floor

The share price story remains the more uncomfortable one. At €731.20, the stock sits roughly 20 percent below its 200-day moving average of €917.40 and has shed 31 percent since the start of the year. Over twelve months, the decline reaches 36 percent, leaving the shares about 38 percent beneath their 52-week high of €1,187.50.

Thursday's 2.3 percent gain offered modest relief, but the technical picture stays fragile. Julius Bär analyst Roger Degen argues the sell-off has gone too far, maintaining a buy rating with a CHF 1,100 price target and pointing to a 2027 price-to-earnings ratio of 14.6 and a dividend yield of 6.7 percent as support for more than 60 percent upside. The average consensus price target across houses stands at CHF 858, per Julius Bär — a gap that highlights genuine disagreement about the firm's trajectory.

What Would Prove the Turnaround

The central question for investors is whether Partners Group can convert portfolio assets into exits and secondaries transactions at scale, generating both realised gains and fresh fee streams. The atNorth deal suggests the machinery works — but a ten percent residual stake in one operator does little on its own to resolve the structural concerns weighing on the multiple.

Should the firm repeat the atNorth pattern — selling majority control to strategic buyers while reinvesting smaller amounts through secondaries structures — across other portfolio positions, the bull case gains real traction. If such transactions prove exceptional rather than routine, markets may treat them as isolated wins rather than the start of a broader recovery.

The next concrete test arrives with fourth-quarter results, scheduled for 16 March 2027. Until then, the tension between a busy deal pipeline and a fee-income shortfall keeps the stock's direction firmly in the balance.