Partners raises €650m war chest for direct investment

Partners Group, the Swiss private markets investment business, has raised its largest direct investment fund to date, closing its 2009 fund on its €650 million hard cap.

Since inception, the Partners Group Direct Investments 2009 has made 19 investments and is already showing a positive net performance, the firm said in a statement. Among the investments already made are: Kaffee Partner, a supplier of commercial coffee provisions and drinks dispensers in Germany, and Grupo Santillana, a publisher of educational text books in Latin America and Spain.

The fund has also already made one exit, having listed China Forestry, a forestry plantation operator, after holding the business for six months.

Partners is currently developing its direct investment capabilities. The firm gets involved as both co-investor and lead direct investor. Since last year it has added 20 staff to its direct investment team, which now numbers more than 120 people, a spokesperson said.

Walter Keller, the former head of Partners’ New York office and current co-head of the direct investment business, described the 2009 fund as still having “ample commitment capacity” although did not specify how much had been deployed.

Partners Group is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland and operates from 11 offices around the world. It has around €20 billion under management across its various programmes of private equity, infrastructure, real estate and debt.