Changes at the top at Partners Group

It has been announced at Partners Group, the most successful private equity company in Switzerland, that Peter Wuffli, the chairman of the board, is to stand down from this position at the forthcoming AGM but will remain deputy chairman of the supervisory committee.

Wuffli, a former CEO of the Union Bank of Switzerland until he was forced to leave in the summer of 2007, was subsequently secured a seat on the board of Partners Group by Marcel Erni, one of the company’s founding partners, after their time together at the McKinsey & Company management consultant firm.
 
It appears Wuffli’s nine-year involvement on the board, four of which as chairman, has been profitable for the 60-year-old, with shares and other investments he holds amounting to CHF 7 million. Not that he alone has benefited from the company’s success, shares having risen in value tenfold since 2009. Indeed, with a market capitalisation of CHF 18 billion, Partners Group belongs to the 30 most valuable companies on the Swiss stock exchange.
 
It is expected Steffen Meister (second photograph), a long-term partner who has worked at the company since 2000, will take over as chairman of the board. A mathematician, it is thought his equity holding in the company is worth some CHF 240 million.

As this article in the Zuger Zeitung pointed out, Partners Group has become a veritable money machine since it was set up 21 years ago, creating a number of millionaires, not least its three founding partners, Alfred Gantner, Urs Wietlisbach and the afore-mentioned Marcel Erni, who each own 10% of the company, amounting to CHF 1.8 billion (each).