Partners Group's Twin-Track Offensive: A Billion-Dollar Power Play and a French Beauty Prize
Published on 08/12/2026 at 13:02 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The Swiss private-markets giant is making headlines on two fronts at once, pressing ahead with an acquisition spree that spans everything from data-center electricity to natural cosmetics. On Thursday, Partners Group confirmed it had taken a majority stake in AVK Power Solutions, a British provider of power supply systems for data centers, with Bloomberg reporting an initial equity commitment north of $1 billion. The same day, news emerged that the firm had entered exclusive talks with Eurazeo over the purchase of Aroma-Zone, a European beauty and wellness brand, with the French seller expected to retain a meaningful minority position.
The timing is no coincidence. Both deals underscore how aggressively Partners Group is deploying capital across sectors, even as its share price languishes well below last year's highs. The AVK acquisition taps directly into one of the most tightly constrained bottlenecks in the artificial-intelligence buildout: electricity. Power delivery has become the critical chokepoint for hyperscale data-center expansion, and institutional investors are scrambling for exposure to companies that solve it. Aroma-Zone, by contrast, represents a consumer-goods play in the fast-growing natural cosmetics niche — a reminder that the firm's mandate stretches far beyond infrastructure.
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Record fundraising masks a fee-quality question
The deal-making comes on the back of a strong fundraising quarter. Partners Group pulled in $16 billion in client commitments during the first half, up sharply from $12.2 billion in the same period a year earlier and a record for the firm. Assets under management ticked up to $186 billion as of June 30, from $185 billion at the start of the year. Management also reaffirmed its full-year 2026 guidance for gross client demand of between $26 billion and $32 billion.
Yet beneath those headline numbers sits a nagging concern about earnings quality. Performance fees accounted for less than 20 percent of total revenue in the first half — well short of the firm's medium-term target range of 25 to 40 percent. Management attributed the shortfall to timing-related reductions in divestment activity and weaker portfolio performance in its more mature evergreen strategies. In that segment, redemptions of $3.8 billion were only partially offset by new commitments of $4.2 billion, with nine percent of the outflows concentrated in just three older evergreen funds.
That dynamic has not been lost on the sell-side. In early July, UBS downgraded the stock from Buy to Neutral, slashing its price target from 1,175 to 705 Swiss francs. The bank cited negative earnings momentum and the expectation of further gating measures on mature evergreen funds — the same redemption restrictions that weighed on the half-year numbers.
A short-seller's shadow and the gating controversy
The stock's slide has a specific catalyst. In April, short-seller Grizzly Reports published a critical report alleging that up to 40 percent of the investments in Partners Group's evergreen funds were overvalued. The company rejected the claims outright. But the damage to investor confidence was done, and matters came to a head in June when Partners Group capped redemptions from a large private-equity fund — roughly $8.6 billion in size — at 5 percent of net asset value per quarter, a response to a surge in withdrawal requests.
Such gating mechanisms are technically standard practice, designed to protect funds from disorderly outflows. But for some investors, the move only deepened skepticism. The share price has nonetheless shown signs of stabilizing recently, up 4.30 percent over the past 30 days and trading 5.13 percent above its 50-day moving average.
A share price still far from its peak
The equity, which closed Tuesday at 785.20 euros, remains down 25.99 percent year-to-date. At 783.20 euros in the most recent session, it sits 36.84 percent below its 52-week high of 1,240.00 euros, reached in early September last year. The stock is still comfortably above its 52-week low of 686.80 euros, set only in June, having regained 14.04 percent from that trough.
Operational wins offer a counter-narrative
Away from the market noise, Partners Group points to tangible progress within its portfolio. At Foundation Risk Partners, an AI-driven transformation boosted EBITDA margins by 120 basis points, translating to a financial impact of roughly $10 million. Such operational improvements are central to the firm's value-creation model, which leans heavily on active management rather than passive capital allocation.
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The twin acquisitions — one in power infrastructure, one in consumer wellness — can also be read as an attempt to rebut the short-seller's thesis through action rather than words. Whether that strategy resonates with investors will become clearer on September 1, when the firm publishes its half-year results. The record inflows and fresh deals offer a compelling story; the question is whether they can finally shift the narrative around valuation.
