Partners Group's Busiest Day in Months Masks a Structural Fee Problem
Published on 08/08/2026 at 19:11 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The Zug-based asset manager fired off two announcements on Thursday that underscore how differently its various business lines are performing right now. On one side sits a flurry of deal-making — including a move for a French cosmetics brand and a fresh infrastructure investment — while on the other, the fee engine that investors once prized is showing visible cracks.
A Beauty Brand That Already Knows Partners Group Well
The most eye-catching development is Partners Group's entry into exclusive talks with Eurazeo over Aroma-Zone, a natural cosmetics and wellness label that the Swiss firm describes as one of Europe's fastest-growing players in its category. Revenues at Aroma-Zone have tripled since 2021, and its customer base has swelled to more than five million people. The Financial Times has pegged the potential enterprise value at around €2 billion, though neither side has confirmed a purchase price.
What makes this deal unusual is the relationship that already exists between the two parties. Partners Group has been funding Aroma-Zone since 2021 through its private credit arm. A successful acquisition would effectively shift that exposure from one internal balance sheet to another — moving the company from a debt position into the private equity portfolio. Eurazeo, the current majority owner, is expected to retain a significant minority stake if the transaction completes.
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Data Center Power: A $1 Billion Statement
The same day brought confirmation that Partners Group has secured a majority stake in AVK Power Solutions, a European provider of power supply systems for data centers and AI infrastructure. The firm plans to inject more than $1 billion in equity, supplemented by debt financing, while AVK's existing management stays on with a minority holding.
The AVK deal slots into a broader infrastructure push. Partners Group has been deploying capital through its fourth direct infrastructure program, which has more than $15 billion committed and is already over 40 percent invested, according to Private Equity Wire. The firm also recently closed an infrastructure secondaries vehicle with more than $5.5 billion in commitments.
The AI Payoff Already Visible in the Portfolio
Beyond new acquisitions, Partners Group is touting operational wins inside its existing holdings. At Foundation Risk Partners, a US insurance broker in its portfolio, an AI transformation program delivered by Version 1 — a UK digitalization specialist that Partners Group also owns — has cut policy processing times significantly. The financial impact: roughly $10 million, with Foundation Risk Partners' EBITDA margin up 120 basis points as a result.
It's a neat illustration of the cross-portfolio collaboration strategy that Partners Group has long pitched to investors, though the numbers involved remain modest relative to the firm's overall scale.
The Fee Squeeze That Won't Go Away
The deal flow lands against a more sobering backdrop from the half-year numbers released in mid-July. Partners Group raised $16 billion in new client commitments during the first six months of 2026, up from $12.2 billion in the same period a year earlier. Assets under management reached $186 billion at the end of June, compared with $174 billion a year ago and $185 billion at the end of last year. The full-year fundraising guidance of $26 billion to $32 billion was reaffirmed.
But performance fees tell a less flattering story. The company has warned they will come in below 20 percent of total revenues this year, well short of the 25 to 40 percent medium-to-long-term target range. The culprit: weaker performance in mature evergreen strategies. Partners Group also expects the evergreen platform to shave one to two percentage points off net asset growth in the second half of 2026, a drag it believes could persist into 2027.
A Share Price Still Digging Out
The market's immediate reaction to Thursday's announcements was positive. The stock closed Friday at €788.60, up 2.28 percent on the day. But the recovery is relative. The shares remain 36.40 percent below the 52-week high of €1,240.00 set in early September last year.
That gap reflects a bruising period that began in late April, when a short-seller report — the so-called "Grizzly attack" — triggered a sharp sell-off. Insiders, including the company's founders, subsequently bought shares in multiple tranches, with media reports putting the cumulative purchases at around CHF 67 million by the end of July.
UBS, meanwhile, cut its rating from Buy to Neutral in early July, slashing its price target from CHF 1,175 to CHF 705 on the back of negative earnings momentum and expectations of further redemption restrictions in mature evergreen funds. That call is now more than four weeks old and predates the latest corporate announcements.
The full half-year results are due on September 1, and that is when investors will get the clearest read on whether the deal-making momentum can offset the structural headwinds in the fee business. For now, the share price math remains unforgiving: even after Friday's gain, the stock would need to rise more than 57 percent just to reclaim its September peak.
