Swiss Partners Group has opened an office in Sydney, its first in Australia, and it has hired Martin Scott to be based there. Scott joins Partners Group from Zurich Financial Services, where he was head of investment sales in Australia.
Mike Siebert, who has been at Partners’ Singapore office since 2004, has also moved to the Sydney office. The two will be responsible for the firm’s investments and client relationships in the region and will report to Philipp Gysler, the firm's Asia head , and Christoph Rubeli, head of Asian markets.
Rubeli told PERE's sister website PEO that the Sydney office will start with a team of three and Siebert and Scott will be joined by a third person from Partners’ associate programme in the second half of this year.
He said Australia’s market characteristics require a local presence. Partners Group’s investments in Australia have brought the firm extremely good returns and it is also an attractive market in terms of fundraising. Proximity to fund managers will also help Partners, he added.
“The establishment of a local Australian presence reflects the significant growth of this region as well as the increased interest we observe among investors,” he said in a statement.
Partners Group has committed to a couple of fund relationships, and made five co-investments in Australia thus far.
The firm joins a list of private equity firms and limited partners – the likes of Candover, Sun Capital, Probitas, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Norwest Venture Partners – that have either recently opened new offices in Asia, or have laid out plans to do so.
This is the firm’s third office in Asia after Singapore and Tokyo. The firm is setting up another office in Beijing, Rubeli said, and that is expected to be up and running by June. Singapore will continue to remain the hub of the firm’s Asian operations, he added.
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