Partners Group's Gong cha Exit Offers Rare Bright Spot Amid Evergreen Redemption Squeeze
Published on 08/25/2026 at 08:12 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The sale of a seven-year-old credit position in a Taiwanese bubble-tea chain is unlikely to move the needle for a firm managing $186bn in assets. But for Partners Group, the timing could hardly be better.
News that TA Associates is selling Gong cha to Bain Capital — a deal Partners Group backed in 2019 as sole lender with more than $200m in financing — landed on Monday as a welcome counterpoint to a narrative that has been dominated by redemption caps and analyst downgrades. The stock ticked up modestly on the SIX Swiss Exchange, though the move was hardly a breakout.
The exit closes a chapter that saw the tea chain expand from roughly 1,000 outlets at the time of Partners Group's initial involvement to 2,200 locations across 33 markets, with annual sales of 150 million drinks. For the Zug-based asset manager, it doubles as a proof point for the credit franchise that sits alongside its better-known private equity operations — a business line that has quietly become a cornerstone of the group's $186bn in assets under management.
The Gating Problem That Won't Go Away
The Gong cha transaction, however, does little to address the structural headache that has defined Partners Group's year: a cascade of redemption restrictions across its evergreen fund range that began building through the late spring and culminated in mid-July.
It started in June, when the flagship Global Value SICAV — a vehicle with roughly $8.6bn in assets — triggered redemption gates after investors sought to pull an estimated 9.8% of net assets in the second quarter. The Delaware private equity fund saw redemption requests of around 6%, while three additional evergreen vehicles, with a combined $9.7bn in assets, drew requests ranging from 3.5% to 5%.
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By mid-July, the company confirmed that five evergreen funds were now subject to gating, capping quarterly outflows at 5% per fund. Management's own guidance puts the so-called tail-down effects for the current fiscal year at $10bn to $13bn.
These are not mere technicalities. The restrictions are expected to shave one to two percentage points off asset growth for the second half of 2026 and into 2027. First-half redemptions from evergreen funds totaled $3.8bn, with 79% of that concentrated in just three vehicles. Performance fees — traditionally a meaningful earnings driver — came in at under 20% of total revenue for the period, well shy of the 25% to 40% medium-term target range.
Reported assets of $186bn also fell short of the $189.9bn consensus figure, underscoring the drag.
Analysts Have Already Voted
The sell-side response was swift and uniform. UBS cut its rating from Buy to Neutral in early July, slashing its price target from CHF 1,175 to CHF 705 on expectations of negative earnings momentum and the possibility that further mature evergreen funds could face gating. Oddo had already downgraded from Buy to Hold in mid-June, and several other houses trimmed targets, in some cases substantially.
Those calls, however, reflect the shock of the initial gating announcements rather than the current picture. The share price has since found its footing: Monday's close of CHF 770.60 came after a 6.2% gain over 30 days, leaving the stock about 3.2% above its 50-day moving average.
The longer-term chart remains unflattering. The shares are down 27% year-to-date (the secondary source puts the decline at 28%, reflecting a slightly different measurement date) and sit roughly 38% below the 52-week high set on September 2 of last year. The 200-day average remains overhead, a technical signal that the stabilization phase is not yet complete, though the relative strength index at around 53 points to a market that is neither overbought nor oversold.
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What Comes Next
The real test arrives in the coming weeks. Partners Group Private Equity Limited has scheduled an investor webcast for August 27 based on unaudited figures through June 30, with the group's full half-year results due on September 1 at 07:00 MEZ.
Investors will be watching whether exits like Gong cha translate into visible credit-book gains and how the promised dividend of CHF 45.73 per share for 2026 compares with last year's CHF 46.00 payout. The gap, while modest, signals the pressure on distributable earnings.
Between now and then, the stock is likely to trade within its current range — supported by individual transactions like the Gong cha sale, but lacking a decisive catalyst to break the pattern of a year that has been defined by redemption caps rather than returns.
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