About Partners Group

• Founded: 1996

• Headquarters: Baar-Zug, Switzerland

• AUM: $149bn (as of 2023)

• Strategy: Multi-asset class private markets platform spanning private equity, infrastructure, real estate, and private debt across primary, secondary, and direct investments globally

• Track record: Manages a series of flagship thematic and asset-class-specific vehicles; prior infrastructure secondaries programme closed at $3.8bn in 2021

• Leadership: Founded by Alfred Gantner, Urs Wietlisbach, Marcel Erni, Reto Baumgartner, and Pius Baschera; current executive chairman David Layton

Partners Group held the final close of its dedicated infrastructure secondaries programme at more than $5.5bn, bringing total capital raised across its latest infrastructure investment platforms beyond $20bn. The figure reflects combined fundraising across multiple parallel strategies during the same period. The secondaries vehicle represents a 45% increase over its predecessor fund, which closed at $3.8bn three years ago.

The scale of the raise — particularly the step-up from the prior vintage — points to LPs allocating more capital to secondaries as a liquidity and rebalancing mechanism in a slower distribution environment. Infrastructure secondaries have historically traded at narrower discounts than buyout secondaries, but the asset class now accounts for a larger share of LP portfolios that need rebalancing as primary deployment slows. Partners Group's ability to pull $5.5bn while running concurrent infrastructure primaries suggests LPs are treating secondaries less as a tactical alternative and more as a dedicated sleeve with its own return expectations.

The overhang question is deployment pace. Partners Group deployed roughly $2.9bn from the prior secondaries fund over three years, implying a 76% deployment rate at final close. Scaling that pace to a $5.5bn vehicle would require sourcing $4.2bn in transactions over a similar timeline — achievable in a market where infrastructure sellers are coming to terms with valuations, but dependent on pricing discipline holding as competition for quality assets intensifies. The test will be whether the firm maintains selectivity or stretches into smaller, less liquid positions to put the capital to work.

Source: AltAssets