Partners Group’s Shontz becomes primary and secondaries co-head

Partners Group has appointed the head of its Denver office as co-head of its primary and secondaries unit.

Anthony Shontz, a 10-year veteran of the private markets firm, took over from Adam Howarth in September, a spokeswoman confirmed. Howarth becomes head of portfolio management Americas.

Shontz, who is a member of the unit’s investment committee and has previous experience at Pacific Private Capital and Prudential Capital, will lead the firm’s private equity integrated investments team for the region alongside Hal Avidano, who is based in New York.

The change comes three months after Partners combined its primary and secondaries businesses in order to streamline dealflow and further focus on its clients, as Secondaries Investor reported. Howarth and Avidano had become co-heads of the combined unit on 1 July.

Howarth was interim co-head of the unit while transitioning to the role of expanding Partners’ portfolio management activities in the Americas, the spokeswoman said. He remains a member of the firm’s private equity integrated investment committee.

Andreas Baumann, who is based in the firm’s Zug headquarters, leads integrated investments globally.

Partners Group has $66 billion in assets under management, according to its website. Its latest private equity secondaries fund is Partners Group Secondary 2015, a €2.5 billion vehicle, according to PEI data.

The firm had also raised €1.2 billion in a first closing as of August for its latest real estate secondaries fund, as sister publication PERE reported. The fund has a €2 billion hard-cap.