With Shares Down 30%, Partners Group Insiders Buy $20 Million as $1.5 Billion Secondaries Fund Takes Off

Partners Group is running a high-wire act. The Swiss private-markets giant is pushing ahead with a $1.5 billion real estate secondaries fund even as redemption requests flood two of its flagship vehicles, a short-seller lawsuit hangs overhead, and the stock trades nearly 30% below the start of 2025.

The new offering — the firm’s fifth global real estate secondaries program — pulled in more than $650 million at its first closing. Closed-end funds, bespoke mandates and other vehicles will funnel capital into GP-led and LP-led secondary transactions. An initial portfolio of three global real estate funds, focused on residential, industrial and hotel assets, will kick things off.

The timing reflects a wider market reality. Stalled fund-raising cycles and depressed transaction volumes are pushing limited partners and fund managers toward secondary markets for liquidity. Partners Group can point to a long runway: since 2008 it has deployed over $6 billion across more than 120 real estate secondaries deals.

But even as the firm opens that new pipeline, cracks have appeared elsewhere. Investors in the $8.6 billion Global Value SICAV submitted redemption requests equal to 9.8% of net asset value during the latest quarter, nearly double the 5% cap. Only about 62% of those requests will be fulfilled. A similar squeeze hit a Delaware-domiciled evergreen vehicle, where May redemptions came in at roughly 6% of NAV, just above the 5% threshold.

None of this is unique to Partners Group. Apollo Global Management, KKR, BlackRock and Blue Owl have all imposed or tightened similar caps at their own evergreen products in recent months. The industry-wide liquidity strain reflects a broader recalibration as retail and institutional investors reassess exposure to private markets.

The redemption pressure has been compounded by an attack from US-based short seller Grizzly Research, which likened Partners Group’s valuation practices to those of Wirecard in a report. The company has sued, calling the allegations “reckless, defamatory and highly misleading.”

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Partners Group?

Management has not been shy about showing conviction. Executives have bought over 20 million Swiss francs’ worth of shares in recent weeks. An extraordinary trading window opened in early June to let employees top up their holdings.

The buying spree has done little to arrest the stock’s slide. The shares closed at €767.00 on Friday — a 1.43% daily gain but still roughly 30% below the start of 2025 and 37% south of the 52-week high of €1,213.50 set last August. The relative strength index sits at 28.7, deep in oversold territory.

Co-founder Fredy Gantner has pointed to a record earnings year and a dividend yield of around 7% as evidence of underlying health. He also noted that about 80% of the $185 billion in assets under management comes from long-dated institutional investors, not the retail base that has triggered redemption flaps at some peers.

The firm is standing by its guidance for gross new money inflows of $26 billion to $32 billion in 2026. However, redemptions are expected to eat into net AuM growth by one to two percentage points in the second half of this year, with possible spillover into 2027. Because management fees are tied directly to the asset base, that is more than a semantic adjustment.

All eyes will be on the quarterly AuM update due July 15, when investors will see whether institutional inflows are offsetting retail outflows. A full half-year report lands on September 1.

For now, the new secondaries fund is a vote of confidence from deep-pocketed LPs — the strongest rebuttal yet to the liquidity rumors that have dogged the stock. Whether that momentum can lift the equity depends on how quickly the remaining $850 million gets committed. The next closing will be the real test.