Partners Group raises $700m for multi-asset fund

Zug-based Partners Group announced that it has raised $700 million for its debut multi-asset debt strategy, dubbed Partners Group Multi-Asset Credit Strategy 2014. The approach is global with over 50 percent of the capital earmarked for senior secured debt, Juri Jenkner, partner and co-head of private debt told PERE's sister-publication Private Debt Investor.

Instruments that the strategy can invest in include private corporate debt, real estate and infrastructure debt, public market credit as well as some limited and opportunistic investments in high yield bonds and distressed situations. Partners Group declined to reveal target returns for the strategy.

The new multi-asset vehicle will be shown opportunities from across the firm’s other single strategies but the portfolio will be actively managed to ensure the correct mix of diversity and meeting the majority senior secured mandate, explained Jenkner. He added that it is anticipated that the strategy will be weighted towards European deals given the current market but that it will also include a substantial portion of US deals with Asian opportunities included on a more selective basis.

The decision to launch a comingled multi-asset strategy was driven by both push and pull factors, said Jenkner. The firm was initially just employing the strategy for some separate mandate investors but other investors showed interest in the approach. Some had small tickets with a range of managers and found that a multi-asset approach was a better way of accessing the diversity offered, he explained.

For Partners Group, the approach allows it to make judicious investments via the secondary market in addition to its established primary market activities.

“It’s a wider view that allows us to extract relative value and implement a more holistic approach to credit,” said Jenkner.

The fund also opens up some funds for distressed investments. Partners Group raised a distressed vehicle in 2009 which is now fully invested. Jenkner noted that a lot of money has been raised for distressed debt and so far, opportunities have been sparce. With the wider multi-asset mandate, Partners Group can make stressed investments when the opportunities arise, without being under pressure to deploy.

The vehicle is closed-ended but has a shorter investment period than standard as it will be presented with a greater volume of pre-qualified deals. The ramp-up period is 12 months with a five-year hold period and one-year wind-down.

The fund has already participated in 35 deals including a corporate debt facility for German publisher Springer Science+Business Media and senior loan for a real estate deal in Hong Kong.

Investment manager Partners Group has more than $37 billion in assets under management across private equity, private real estate, private infrastructure and private debt. The firm is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland and has offices in San Francisco, Houston, New York, São Paulo, London, Guernsey, Paris, Luxembourg, Milan, Munich, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo and Sydney.