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(Sharecast News) - Switzerland's Partners Group insisted on Thursday it still expected "solid" growth in assets under management this year, despite warning it could be forced to cap a second fund.
The alternative investment firm saw its shares tank on Wednesday after it limited redemptions on its European $8.6bn private equity Global Value SICAV fund, to 5% of net asset value. The move was prompted by withdrawal requests reaching an estimated 9.8% in the second quarter.
In a statement issued on Thursday, Partners said volatility across open-ended evergreen fund flows had spiked for the whole industry, and acknowledged that another of its private equity funds also faced a cap.
Expected repurchases requests for the flagship $16bn Delaware-domiciled private equity vehicle would likely be "slightly above" the 5% threshold, at around 6%, it confirmed, adding: "The exact value of repurchase request as well as the exact amount that will be repurchased will be finalised by the end of July, in accordance with standard fund procedures."
Partners said that while fundraising was still expected to exceed outflows in the first half, it acknowledged that AUM growth could be slowed in the second half by the evergreen platform, by 1% to 2%.
However, net AUM growth was expected to be "solid", and the company reaffirmed guidance for gross new client demand of between $26bn and $32bn for the full year, "supported by a large and visible pipeline of fundraising opportunities across mandates, evergreen and traditional closed-ended programmes".
David Layton, chief executive, said: "Liquidity features are designed to protect long-term investors, and to ensure that returns continue to be driven by the quality of the underlying private assets rather than short-term flow dynamics.
"We have a strong underlying portfolio of high-quality companies currently undergoing significant value creation initiatives with substantial upside potential."
As at 1130 BST, shares in the Zurich-listed group - which tumbled 16% on Wednesday - were trading 3% higher.
Evergreen funds operate indefinitely. Partners Group, which manages $185bn in assets, currently has more than 30 such funds across five asset classes. Partners said that around 80% of AUM stems from institutional investors and the rest from private wealth investors.