Swiss private-markets giant Partners Group is weighing a move that highlights one of private credit’s biggest challenges in today’s market: what happens when investors want their money back but the underlying loans are not ready to be sold?
The firm is exploring a transaction that would shift roughly €800 million, or about $917 million, of private-credit loans into a new continuation vehicle, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg.
The proposed vehicle would acquire loans currently held in Partners Group-managed funds and give the assets a longer runway. Existing investors in the older funds would reportedly have the option to roll their investments into the new structure or take their money out.
The transaction has not been completed, and its final size and terms could change.
But the proposal offers a window into how private-credit managers are adapting to a market in which exits and repayments can take longer than investors originally expected.
What Partners Group Is Considering
According to the Bloomberg report, the loans under consideration come from several older strategies, including the firm’s 2018 and 2020 Private Markets Credit Strategies funds, as well as its fifth, sixth and seventh Multi-Asset Credit funds.
Rather than selling those assets outright, Partners Group could place them into a continuation vehicle.
The structure essentially creates a new investment pool around existing assets.
For investors who want liquidity, the transaction can provide an opportunity to exit.
For investors willing to remain invested, rolling into the new vehicle can provide additional time for the loans to mature or be realized under potentially more favorable conditions.
That flexibility is one reason continuation vehicles have become increasingly important across private markets.
Why Hold the Loans Longer?
The underlying issue is the pace of private-market exits.
Private-equity firms have faced a more difficult environment for selling portfolio companies, while higher financing costs and changing valuations have made transactions more complicated.
That matters to private-credit investors because many loans are tied to companies backed by private-equity sponsors.
If a sponsor cannot sell a company or refinance its debt on the original timetable, lenders can end up holding the loans longer.
Bloomberg’s report says this dynamic has slowed the return of capital to investors and encouraged managers to look toward secondary-market transactions and continuation structures.
In other words, the proposed Partners Group transaction is not simply about raising another conventional private-credit fund.
It is about extending the life of existing investments.
Partners Group Is Still Raising Billions
The potential credit transaction comes as Partners Group continues to raise substantial amounts of fresh capital.
The firm reported $16 billion in new client commitments during the first half of 2026, bringing assets under management to approximately $186 billion as of June 30.
Partners Group has reaffirmed its target of $26 billion to $32 billion in gross new client demand for the full year.
The company also said its exit pipeline remains full, while acknowledging that some exit processes could move into 2027.
That combination is important.
Partners Group is simultaneously bringing in new capital while managing older investments whose realization schedules may be extending.
The continuation-vehicle market provides one mechanism for dealing with that mismatch.
Continuation Vehicles Are Becoming a Bigger Part of Private Markets
A continuation vehicle allows a private-market manager to transfer existing assets from an older fund into a new investment structure.
Instead of forcing a sale simply because the original fund is approaching the end of its intended holding period, the manager can seek additional time.
For limited partners, or LPs, this can create a choice.
They can receive liquidity by selling their interest, or they can continue participating in the assets through the new vehicle.
But these transactions require careful attention to valuation and conflicts of interest.
The manager is effectively involved on both sides of the transaction: it manages the existing fund and can also manage the new vehicle acquiring the assets.
That has attracted regulatory attention.
The SEC Is Already Examining Continuation Vehicles
In June, Reuters reported that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division was examining continuation vehicles used by private-equity firms and other asset managers.
According to people familiar with the matter cited by Reuters, investigators were looking at potential conflicts of interest, asset valuations and whether investors were receiving adequate disclosures.
Reuters did not identify the specific funds or assets under investigation and reported that the inquiry did not establish wrongdoing by any particular manager.
That regulatory scrutiny does not mean Partners Group’s proposed transaction is problematic.
It does, however, illustrate why continuation deals are receiving greater attention as they become a more established feature of private markets.
Partners Group Says Private Credit Remains Resilient
Partners Group itself has argued that the private-credit market remains fundamentally resilient, while acknowledging that the environment is becoming more selective.
In its 2026 private-credit outlook, the firm said returns are likely to become more dispersed as borrowers face different levels of exposure to economic and technological disruption.
It also said private credit is entering a period in which underwriting quality and borrower selection matter more than simply collecting spreads across a broadly diversified portfolio.
The firm reported that non-accrual rates remained relatively low in its cited data and that interest-coverage ratios had improved from their 2023–24 lows.
At the same time, Partners Group acknowledged renewed concerns over valuations, redemptions and the possibility that reported marks can become stale when markets move quickly.
That creates a more complicated picture than simply calling the private-credit market healthy or distressed.
The Industry Is Facing a Liquidity Problem — Not Necessarily a Credit Collapse
Private credit has expanded rapidly over the past decade, creating a huge pool of loans that are not traded as easily as publicly listed bonds.
That illiquidity can become particularly important when investors want to exit at the same time that underlying borrowers or sponsors are struggling to refinance or sell assets.
The result is an unusual situation:
Investors may want liquidity while managers want more time.
Continuation vehicles can bridge that gap.
But they do not eliminate the underlying risks.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that private-credit markets are also facing concerns about fund-level leverage and transparency. Its reporting cited estimates that fund-level borrowing could add hundreds of billions of dollars of leverage on top of the roughly $1.5 trillion U.S. private-credit market.
The same report noted that U.S. private-credit defaults had reached a record 6.1% over the 12 months through July, according to Fitch Ratings.
Those figures cover the broader market and should not be interpreted as evidence that Partners Group’s specific loan portfolio has the same default rate.
Partners Group’s Own Outlook Points to More Selectivity
Partners Group’s broader 2026 private-markets outlook says private-credit returns are moderating as base rates decline, while it sees relative-value opportunities in Europe and selective middle-market lending.
The firm also expects greater differentiation among borrowers and strategies.
For investors, that means the quality of the underlying loans and the manager’s ability to select and manage credits can become more important than simply gaining exposure to private credit as an asset class.
The company has also described continuation vehicles as a growing part of the secondaries market, while warning that the quality of such transactions can vary and requires heightened scrutiny.
A Bigger Question Is Emerging
The proposed €800 million transaction comes at a moment when private markets are trying to solve a fundamental timing problem.
Funds have finite lives.
Companies and loans do not always cooperate with those deadlines.
When exits take longer, managers need alternatives to forced sales — while investors need ways to obtain liquidity if they no longer want to wait.
Continuation vehicles attempt to provide both.
But the structure raises another question: how are the assets valued, who gets to decide the price, and whether existing investors are receiving a fair choice between cashing out and staying invested?
Those questions are likely to become increasingly important as more private-market managers use the structure.
For Partners Group, the reported $917 million proposal therefore represents more than a single credit transaction.
It is another sign of how the private-markets industry is adapting to a world where capital can remain committed longer, exits can take more time and liquidity is becoming a strategic asset in its own right.
For now, however, the Partners Group transaction remains under consideration. There is no indication that the proposed vehicle has been finalized, and the reported amount and portfolio could still change.
