Home

Deck

Partners Group Holding AG · PGHN · SIX

A Swiss global private-markets manager that earns recurring management fees, plus performance fees, on roughly USD 185 billion of locked-up client capital across private equity, private debt, infrastructure and real estate.

$813
Share price 23 Jun 2026
$21B
Market cap 25.8M shares
USD 184.9B
Assets under management
~2,000
Employees
Listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange in 2006 and compounded into a Swiss blue chip; the shares topped about $1,383 in January 2026, then a liquidity scare cut them to $813 by June — a roughly 40% drawdown in six months.
2 · The de-rating

A record year, a stock down 40% — the multiple broke, not the earnings.

  • Price. Shares peaked at about $1,383 in January 2026 and fell to $813 by June, compressing the multiple from roughly 20x to about 13.6x trailing earnings.
  • Earnings. FY2025 was a record: revenue $3.1B, performance fees up 60% to $1,033m, diluted EPS $61.12 — and fundraising grew 22% while the industry shrank 4%.
  • Trigger. The fall tracks a liquidity scare, not an earnings break: in June 2026 the firm capped quarterly redemptions on its Global Value evergreen fund at 5% of NAV after Q2 requests reached about 9.8%.
The roughly 7% dividend yield at $813 pays a holder to wait — if the scare proves a wobble rather than a structural break.
3 · The question that decides it

Is 'locked' perpetual capital actually locked?

  • The bet. Management's base case crawls AuM about 5% a year, then leaps above USD 450bn by 2033 — an out-year inflection that leans almost entirely on the private-wealth evergreen pool now in redemption.
  • The crack. The June 2026 gating of the Global Value fund is the first hard evidence that the 'perpetual' label bends when investors head for the exit; management concedes elevated redemptions could slow net AuM growth 1–2%.
  • The reads. Bulls call the cap prudent liquidity management protecting remaining investors — one vehicle, no redemptions in the credit evergreens. Bears call it proof the growth engine is gating at the source.
Both the growth story and the multiple concentrate in the exact channel now in redemption — a spreading wave would hit fees, marks and dividend headroom at once.
4 · The franchise

A 55% return on equity earned by renting a fee on locked-up capital.

USD 184.9B
Assets under management fee-paying
62.8%
EBITDA margin held five years
55%
Return on equity
$1.89B
Free cash flow ~119% of net income

Partners Group rents a recurring management fee on capital locked for a decade or longer, employs only about 2,000 people, and ties up almost none of its own balance sheet. The fee rate on AuM has held in a 1.18%–1.33% band for two decades — when performance fees fell 78% in 2022, management fees still grew 11%.

5 · The asterisk

A third of profit rides on marks the firm sets itself.

  • Internal marks. Performance fees were 32% of FY2025 revenue ($1,033m), booked on Level-3 fair values the auditor flags as a 'subjective assessment' — and the firm controls when assets are sold to crystallize them.
  • The rebuttal. A board-reviewed write-down test discounts unrealized NAV 50% before any fee is booked, and free cash flow ran about 119% of net income in 2025 — accrued fees that convert to cash are not fictional. A short-seller, Grizzly, alleges roughly 40% of evergreen marks are inflated.
  • Governance. A 4-of-8 independent board, an executive chairman who sets strategy, and rising related-party dealings cap how far the multiple can re-rate.
6 · The two-sided picture

A quality compounder on sale — if the flows hold.

  • For. The durable half of earnings is observed, not forecast: two decades of stable fee rates, 11% management-fee growth through the 2022 carry collapse, a fortress balance sheet ($4.7B liquidity against $505m net debt) and a roughly 7% yield.
  • Against. Growth and the multiple both concentrate in the evergreen channel now gating; strip the lumpy performance-fee third and 13.6x is a premium on a decelerating fee annuity, not a bargain.
  • The swing factor. Whether evergreen net flows normalize below the 5% gate or turn persistently negative across multiple vehicles — that single fact separates a buying opportunity from a redemption spiral.

Watchlist to re-rate: The 15 July 2026 AuM update and 1 September 2026 H1 results. Flows inside the USD 26–32bn new-client guide with no performance-fee reversal confirm the gating was a wobble; accelerating redemptions across vehicles put the bear's $557 in play.