Partners Group Reviews

For juniors/fresh grads joining the Singapore office (there should be many of you since so many are leaving/have left), the pay structure is like this: mid 2 to mid 3 for back/mid office, and ~4 for investment teams. Basically, you are already down ~20-40% compared to the industry from the get-go, and you are stuck with a whopping three months notice period that only begins on the month after the date of resignation. When people jump, it is not surprising to hear of a >50% pay raise! Even for the mid-levels, people are stuck with a six months notice period and they can do much better elsewhere, but these guys are mature adults, and I would like to use this post to warn the younger ones who might be more naive and believe in Swiss fairy-tales. Basically, turnover is crazy this year (especially in US, Singapore) and you see some teams getting decimated. For teams which still seem relatively unscathed, half of them are probably actively spamming their resumes in the job market looking for a better gig. In the real estate team for instance, there basically seems to be a whole new team every 2-3 years. Please don’t think that this time is different, because it never is as long as the guys running the show are still the same. Expecting a different result from doing the same thing over and over again is insanity. If you are coming in now, be ready to clean stuff up, as can be inferred from the dozens of new job listings. Also, your pay is likely to benchmarked aginst the Manilla office and Denver office which were essentially set up to cut costs. However, if you are happy helping old white millionaire/billionaire males get from filthy rich to “I don’t know how to describe! rich”, then go for it! Everyone is just a digit, a cost to be minimized if you don't bring in revenue. Well, that's life, but you have a choice on how you want to live your life and to choose the company to work for where your values align. Here, you are also less important than clients, whom they rip off anyway through exorbitant fees, considering that their track record is nothing stellar and that the Global IC members come from a fund-of-fund background and gets seriously in the way of investing in certain contexts. Also, am not sure what HR is doing. They are really proud of their “feedback is a gift” campaign, which they seem to genuinely believe helps employees develop, when all they are doing is coordinating a simple but manual 360 feedback which other companies do as well. Maybe one of their new KPIs is to increase the glassdoor ratings, judging from some of the suspiciously fake positive reviews that have been popping up recently.

Compensation & Benefits: Pay is way below market standard, difficult to attract top talents due to the unwillingness to match salaries. Partners Group often undercut their employees, claiming they are focused on a long-term compensation structure. As such, many inefficient and sub-par employees stay on by doing the bare minimum, resulting in wastage of resources and negatively affecting team morale. Turnover is rampant. Partners Group does not see this as an issue as everybody can be easily replaced by hungry university graduates who just want to get their foot into PE. Unless you are Swiss/Male/White, promoting up the ranks is much slower. The carry incentive that Partners Group likes to hang infront of the deal team vests over a rolling 5-year period and is pooled; you hardly get credited for the deals you execute. Despite working similar hours, investment teams in Singapore are paid half as compared to their counterparts in banks or other PE shops. Culture: Because of the long term compensation structure, incompetent leaders stay in Partners Group and rise through the ranks. This creates a very negative work culture as new employees do not look up and respect their team leaders as role models. Many older employees (some are incompetent and ineffective) have huge inertia to leave Partners Group due to the huge amount of shares they have amassed over their tenure, further worsening the low morale in the company. In an attempt to cut costs, HR will no longer do recruitment for ranks below the Associate level. This has been 'outsourced' to the departments and teams. By doing so, this adds additional workload and responsibility for the businesses. Junior hires are no longer hired based on fit (into the Partners Group corporate culture) but instead based on businesses' immediate needs. The company's recent focus into the expansion of the Manila office, in an attempt to cut costs and increase EBITDA margins brings about a horde of issues. Partners Group thinks they are able to get the same level of quality and output and also be able to cut costs at the same time. (You can't have your cake and eat it too!) TLDR: If you are a fresh graduate and thinks this is a great place to have a headstart into PE, you cannot be more wrong. Go slog it out at Big 4 or the banks before jumping to a bigger PE firm, you will learn more transferrable skills, gain valuable work experience and actually have a nicer brand name on your resume. This place is great for people who want to have kids, seeking retirement, have 0 career aspirations and are comfortable being led by inefficient leaders. For potential job seekers, the grass might be greener here at Partners Group but I can assure you it is nothing but garbage once you are in.