Grizzly Research Short Partners Group Holding AG

Who is Partners Group Holding AG?

Partners Group Holding AG is a Swiss-listed alternative asset manager with approximately $184.9 billion in assets under management as of year-end 2025. The firm is one of Europe's largest alternative asset managers and is widely credited with pioneering evergreen investment vehicles, which bring access to private equity and private credit investments to retail investors. Its flagship US evergreen fund, Partners Group Private Equity (Master Fund), LLC, holds approximately $15.9 billion in net asset value of the firm's $56 billion total evergreen program.

Business Model

Partners Group earns the majority of its revenue from management and performance fees levied on the assets it manages across private equity, private debt, infrastructure, and real estate strategies. Its evergreen funds, which Grizzly estimates contributed approximately 45% of total revenue in 2024, are permanent investment vehicles. Unlike traditional private equity funds with finite lifespans, evergreen funds accept ongoing subscriptions and redemptions and continue to charge fees indefinitely. Because the underlying assets are private and illiquid, fund valuations are determined internally using Level 3 fair-value models, with limited independent verification of how individual positions are marked.

Grizzly Research's Key Allegations

• 01

  Grizzly estimates close to 40% of the evergreen funds' investments may be severely mismarked, citing pervasive disparities between Partners Group's reported fair values and the underlying operating companies' actual financial performance. After reviewing the firm's analysis, one forensic compliance expert told Grizzly the situation could prove "worse than Wirecard," whose roughly $4 billion accounting fraud collapsed the German payments company in 2020. Grizzly states it did not observe comparable irregular patterns in the filings of Partners Group's largest US and European peers.

• 02

  The Master Fund discloses holding 26,838,037 shares of Hong Kong-based Zenith Longitude Limited as of September 30, 2025, valued at $322 million and representing roughly 67% of the fund's entire Asia-Pacific direct-equity portfolio. Zenith Longitude's 2025 annual return filed with the Hong Kong Companies Registry records the same Master Fund as holding 76,288,162 shares, a discrepancy of approximately 50 million shares. Grizzly states it consulted Hong Kong lawyers and was unable to identify any corporate action, subsidiary structure, or off-shore arrangement that would explain the gap without ordinarily appearing in Partners Group's investor disclosures.

• 03

  Over the six-month reporting window from March 31 to September 30, 2025, the Master Fund marked its combined preferred and common equity position in Ciddan S.à r.l. up 12.0%, from $77.1 million to $86.4 million. During that exact same window, on April 4, 2025, the Russian government transferred 100% ownership of Ciddan's underlying asset, pharmaceutical manufacturer JSC Nizhpharm, to state-managed Pharmirus LLC by Presidential decree. Grizzly notes that of 30 companies whose Russian assets had been seized prior to this incident, only three had recovered any portion of their investment, citing data from the Kyiv School of Economics.

• 04

  Grizzly identifies multiple positions where Partners Group's reported markups diverge sharply from the operating performance of the underlying businesses. The Swedish data-center operator Green DC was marked up 176.9% on common equity over a period in which its revenue fell 17.6% and operating losses widened 42%; Portuguese biocontrol firm Rovensa Group received an 857.8% common-equity markup against just 2.9% year-over-year revenue growth; and PG Investment Company 88 was marked up 383.1% on its common-equity slice within 26 days of acquisition. Grizzly states such moves require either an immediate third-party reference transaction or a material change in the underlying business, neither of which Partners Group has publicly disclosed.

• 05

  Across the Master Fund's $840 million direct-debt book, Grizzly identifies ten positions where reported principal balances moved in ways inconsistent with standard private-credit accounting under ASC 820. On seven holdings, principal rose between 40% and 570% while fair value barely moved; on two positions, Dentive Capital and Sigma Holdco, principal was reported as zero while fair value remained in the millions. A former Partners Group valuation professional told Grizzly that principal on a debt instrument should not change absent a payment, writeoff, or follow-on investment, and that none of these mechanisms are documented in the filings.

Key Charts

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