Partners Group Holding AG

Equinix and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board have completed their $4 billion acquisition of Nordic data center operator atNorth, with CPP Investments becoming the controlling shareholder. The deal gives Equinix a meaningful stake in the high-density data center platform, which operates eight data centers across all five Nordic countries and has projects under development in Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark. CPP Investments now owns approximately 51% of atNorth after committing $1.3 billion, while Equinix holds about 34% following an $895 million commitment. Partners Group, atNorth's previous owner, reinvested $260 million for an approximately 10% stake, with the remainder held by internal stakeholders. The transaction is immediately accretive to Equinix's adjusted funds from operations per share and is supported by a $4.1 billion financing package from European and Canadian lenders.

Partners Group Holding AG reported record fundraising of $16 billion in new assets for the first half of 2026, up 31% year on year and marking the best first half in the company's history. Management income grew 12% at constant currency to CHF 905 million, with an EBITDA margin of 63%, while net profit was flat at CHF 502 million on a constant currency basis. Performance fees reached $233 million, representing 19% of revenues, and the company guided performance income to be 20% to 25% of revenue for 2026, down from previous expectations due to uncertainty around the timing of a few large exits that may slip into 2027. The company also announced a leadership transition, with CEO David Layton moving to CIO and Chairman of the Investment Committee from January 2027, and Yuri and Roberto stepping in as co-CEOs. Partners Group aims to quadruple insurance AUM to $100 billion by 2033 as part of its broader growth strategy.

Partners Group's power platforms Middle River Power and PowerTransitions have more than doubled their combined operating capacity to 4.8 GW and increased combined EBITDA by over 60% since their acquisition in 2025, accelerating speed-to-power in the US by co-locating battery storage at legacy natural gas plants. This strategy bypasses multi-year interconnection queues, providing firm, dispatchable capacity at existing points of interconnection. In the last year, Middle River Power added battery storage to four California gas plants, with construction underway at five more, while PowerTransitions signed or closed transactions representing 1.5 GW of capacity in New York and is adding 600 MW of battery storage. Patrick Langan, Managing Director at Partners Group, emphasized that the US is primarily short of power capacity, not generation, and that this co-location strategy addresses speed-to-power and grid reliability cost-effectively.

Partners Group reports strong growth at its two US HVAC portfolio companies, DiversiTech and PremiStar, driven by extreme weather increasing demand for cooling. Since their acquisition in 2021, DiversiTech's revenues have increased 60% and PremiStar's revenues have doubled, with EBITDA growth of 14% CAGR and 22% CAGR respectively. The firm attributes the performance to tailwinds including extreme weather, an ageing installed base of HVAC units, the need for energy-efficient upgrades, and the rise of building automation. Partners Group has implemented value creation plans across both companies, investing in operations, supply chains, technology, and add-on acquisitions.

Alimentation Couche-Tard has agreed to acquire Polish convenience retailer Żabka Group in a transaction with an equity value of 32.62 billion zlotys, or 8.74 billion dollars. The Canadian company will launch a voluntary tender offer through its subsidiary Circle K Polska at 32 zlotys per share in cash, with shareholders representing approximately 57 percent of Żabka's shares, including CVC Capital Partners and Partners Group, having signed hard irrevocable undertakings to tender their stakes. Couche-Tard described the deal as its largest acquisition to date and expects it to increase adjusted EBITDA margin immediately while raising earnings per share from year two onward, with identified cost and revenue synergies of about 250 million dollars. The transaction, which has unanimous support from Żabka's leadership team, is subject to regulatory approvals including merger control clearance and foreign direct investment review, with completion expected by December 2026 at the latest. If Couche-Tard obtains at least 95 percent of voting rights, it intends to squeeze out remaining shareholders and delist Żabka from the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Revolut has introduced private market funds on its platform for eligible customers in Europe through collaboration with Apollo, Ares, Hamilton Lane and Partners Group. The offering gives individual investors access to assets across private equity, private credit and private infrastructure through fund structures intended for non-institutional investors. The funds are set up under the EU's ELTIF 2.0 regime and are evergreen with periodic liquidity windows. Revolut, which has 75 million customers globally, said the new product is aimed at experienced investors with a long-term investment horizon. Fund management and performance fees apply.

Partners Group has closed its infrastructure secondaries program at more than $5.5 billion, betting that value creation rather than entry-price discounts will drive returns. The program comprises a $1.7 billion closed-end fund alongside bespoke mandates and other vehicles that invest in parallel, with new clients accounting for more than 70% of committed capital. Already over 25% committed across 20 seed investments, the capital pool includes a lead investment in a continuation vehicle for a global commercial aviation leasing portfolio with 69 assets. Dr. Dmitriy Antropov, head of private infrastructure partnership investments, said the firm's direct-style underwriting has delivered attractive returns across cycles, noting that a typical secondary is marked at around 1.3x cost 12 months after closing. The close comes just three days after Partners Group closed its fourth direct infrastructure program at more than $15 billion, 50% larger than its predecessor.

Anastasia Amoroso, chief investment strategist at Partners Group, now sees the S&P 500 reaching roughly 8,500 on 2027 earnings, with 8,200 as the more likely year-end 2027 target, after the newly-signed Iran MOU removed geopolitical tail risks her team had been modeling. Those risks included a 30-to-50-basis-point drag on GDP growth and 50-to-100-basis-point upside to inflation, and their removal shifts focus back to consumer spending, corporate margins, and the global capex cycle. Amoroso points to Q2 earnings growing 25% year-over-year against a 15% forecast, with Q3 tracking another 20% and S&P profit margins at 14% or higher, while BEA corporate profits hit $4.4 trillion in Q1 2026, up 12.8% year-over-year. She also highlights a multi-region capex story, including Vanguard's estimate of $2.1 trillion in cumulative AI-related capital expenditure from Q1 2025 through Q4 2027, and a U.S. FY 2027 Department of War request of $1.5 trillion, a roughly 42% increase, alongside NATO's new 5% of GDP defense-spending standard. However, risks remain: core PCE hit 130.08 in May, its highest in 12 months, and BlackRock entered 2026 with reduced U.S. equity exposure, warning that AI capex overinvestment could undermine the earnings growth underpinning the bull case.

Partners Group has invested USD 250 million in Avenue Capital Group's global commercial aviation leasing portfolio through its infrastructure secondaries strategy. The investment is part of an approximately USD 360 million multi-asset continuation vehicle established by Avenue Capital Group, with Partners Group as the sole lead investor. The portfolio consists of 69 mid-life aviation projects across narrowbody, widebody, and regional jets, leased to 30 airlines in Asia, Western Europe, and North America. Avenue Capital Group's aviation team will continue to manage the assets, which benefit from contracted cash flows and a structural undersupply of new aircraft.