Record fundraising lifts Partners Group’s H1 revenues

Partners Group’s first-half revenues surged 58 percent to SFr 453 million ($466 million; €415 million) due to a record amount of funds raised and a strong pipeline of investment activity, the firm said in its interim report and reported by sister publication Private Equity International.

The Zurich-listed private markets investment manager published its report on Tuesday, announcing its revenue and EBITDA figures for the first half of the year. Secondaries investments made up 23 percent of the investment volume, and a further 22 percent went into “select private markets managers”, the firm said.

Revenue growth surpassed growth in assets under management, which increased by 22 percent to €47.6 billion. EBITDA rose 66 percent to SFr 272 million, up from SFr 166 million in the first half of 2015, while the EBITDA margin was higher at 60 percent, compared with 58 percent at the same time last year.

Partners Group credited the surge in revenues and EBITDA to the record €4.6 billion in new commitments it received, up from a previous record of €3.8 billion raised in the first half of 2015. Fundraising was driven by continuing investor demand for yield, the firm said.

“We see institutional investors globally continuing to increase their allocations to asset classes with superior return profiles, such as private markets, in this low-yield environment,” said Christoph Rubeli, partner and co-chief executive officer, in a statement.

“We are committed to building out our platform globally to accommodate this growth in client demand; this year we opened offices in Denver and Manila, and we are currently building out our teams in both places.”

Partners Group serves more than 850 institutional investors worldwide, investing in private equity, private real estate, private debt, private infrastructure, and liquid private markets on their behalf.

The firm said in its July AUM update that it invested $4.9 billion in corporate, real estate, and infrastructure assets in the first half of 2016, an increase of $400 million from a year ago. More than half of this investment volume, or 55 percent, was put to work in what Partners Group calls “direct transactions”, or investments in portfolio companies, as opposed to investments in primary private equity funds and secondaries funds.

Partners Group said in its interim report that in the first half of the year, it boosted its investments in North America, while the proportion of European deals fell.

The firm allocated 47 percent of its total investment volume in North America, up from 33 percent a year ago.

“This increase is a reflection of the positive transaction momentum in the US in general, and of the attractive pockets of growth we identified in that region through our relative value approach in particular,” the firm said.

The proportion of European transactions dropped to 28 percent, compared with 43 percent a year ago. The firm said it expects this number to rise again, once it includes recent transactions, such as the acquisition of French property management services provider Foncia.