Partners Group Holding, a global investor in private markets, is cutting about a fifth of its private equity team in Asia Pacific amid a dearth of deals, according to people familiar.
About 10 private equity deal-makers at the Zug, Switzerland-based company, mostly in Singapore, will be impacted, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter. The investment manager, which also owns private debt, real estate and infrastructure assets, may redeploy some of the affected staff to other businesses, one of the people said.
Appetite for alternative investments has dwindled over the past year as declines in public markets left many portfolios over exposed to private equity. Meantime, the downturn in stocks and bonds together with concern over a global economic slowdown has made it more difficult for investors to exit some private investments.
"Asia remains a significant part of Partners Group's strategy and we will continue deploying capital and growing our business in the region," a London-based spokeswoman said in an email. The firm has about $135 billion in assets under management globally.
About half of the group's 630 Asia-Pacific based employees are in Singapore, and it has about 50 private equity professionals in the region, one of the people said. The firm invested about 68% of capital into direct investments, with the remainder focusing on secondaries, primaries and syndicated loans.
Mergers and acquisitions by private equity firms in Asia-Pacific in the first two months of this year fell 28% to $105 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Still, the firm has made three senior appointments in the region since August last year to run different businesses in Japan and Singapore. Those include: Tatsuya Ochi, head of private equity for Japan; Henry Chui, head of private wealth for Asia-Pacific; and Teppei Kawai, head of client solutions for Japan.
