Michael Penner is the chairman of Canada for Partners Group, which opened a Toronto office in 2019.Andrej Ivanov/The Globe and Mail
Swiss asset manager Partners Group AG is opening an office in Montreal, aiming to forge stronger ties in the province and to find new opportunities to invest across the country as the federal government plans major nation-building projects.
The Montreal outpost will be the sixth North American office for Partners Group, which manages US$174-billion in assets and is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland.
The company opened a Toronto office in 2019, and most major global investors looking to do more business in Canada have put down roots in the country’s financial services hub.
But Partners Group has had relationships in Quebec for decades, including investments with the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the province’s $496-billion pension fund manager.
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The Montreal office will be at the 1250 René-Lévesque tower, which is also home to another of Canada’s largest pension funds, the $300-billion Public Sector Pension Investment Board, commonly known as PSP Investments.
And Partners Group sees a chance to do more with institutional clients including the province’s university pension funds, as well as insurers such as iA Financial Group and Beneva Inc.
“It’s not a beachhead. It’s actually us just following up on all the business and the relationships that we’ve been building over the years,” Michael Penner, chairman of Canada for Partners Group, said in an interview.
Mr. Penner and head of Canadian client solutions Michael Meredith both come from Montreal and are embedded in the province’s close-knit business community. They have also hired a small Montreal-based staff, in part by recruiting from some of Canada’s largest pension funds.
“We are not going to be walking up on [Toronto’s] Bay Street and thinking we’re covering the country,” Mr. Penner said.
Partners Group is also hoping to capitalize as Ottawa launches a push to fast-track and build major infrastructure and energy projects across the country. The federal government has called on institutional investors in Canada and abroad to help finance tens of billions of dollars of new investment that will be needed to get projects moving.
“Canada is at a crossroads right now, attracting worldwide attention for investments and alternatives, and we’ve always been there,” Mr. Penner said. “And we want to make sure that since Canada is doubling down on investment, we want to double down on Canada.”
A big part of that push will be designing products that give wealthy individuals a way to invest in assets such as private equity, infrastructure, real estate and private credit that have historically been dominated by large institutions.
Two years ago, the asset manager teamed up with Bank of Montreal to launch a private-asset investment fund for accredited Canadian retail investors.
Those “evergreen” funds don’t have a fixed date to return money to investors and typically provide regular windows for investors to buy in and cash out, with restrictions. They currently account for US$52-billion of Partners Group’s total assets, and the company expects their popularity will surge.
The rush to tailor the funds to a broad swath of private wealth clients and secure partnerships to sell them through advisers requires a lot of legwork. The market for retail investors is still built around mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, and investing in private markets comes with different benefits and risks.
But as more companies stay private and more investors acclimatize to new varieties of funds, Mr. Penner thinks it could be “the biggest opportunity globally” for Partners Group and its rivals.
“This is a paradigm shift,” he said. “Changing that culture takes time.”