Partners Capital Heralds US West Coast Expansion

Tom Burroughes

13 December 2018

Partners Capital, the outsourced investment office operating in North America, Europe and Asia, has opened a San Francisco office, targeting high net worth clients, endowments and foundations.

The firm, which oversees $24 billion of assets, said the office which is to be opened in July next year, will be headed by Sudharshan Murugesu, who joined Partners Capital in 2013 after working at investment houses Bain Capital, Marshall Wace and Vantage Investment Management. In 2017 the firm supported Murugesu’s entry to Harvard Business School, from which he will graduate in 2019 and move to San Francisco.

The West Coast team will be supported primarily by the Boston office of 47 professionals but will also work closely with the other offices.

Partners Capital founder and CEO Stan Miranda, who recently stated that the firm is keen to accelerate activities on the West Coast, has already relocated part-time to the region. Miranda will work with one team member who has been located in San Francisco over the past two years supporting its existing West Coast clients, plus several team members who will be relocating from other Partners Capital offices.

"Building out our West Coast presence is the highest strategic priority in the firm today given the role technology will play in the investment world,” Miranda said.

“Asset managers across every asset class should be transforming their businesses in terms of how they source, analyse, and manage their portfolios of investments. Every private and public equity investor is looking at companies through more of a 'technology lens' as they attempt to ascertain ahead of others who will be the winners and losers from digital transformation. To fully appreciate the pace and scale of this transformation, we must have a physical presence in the Bay Area," he said.

Miranda plans to split his time in the coming years between the West Coast and Europe.

Partners Capital already has relationships with West Coast asset managers including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital, DoubleLine, Post Advisory Group, amongst others.

The San Francisco team will also take over responsibility for serving many of Partners Capital's existing West Coast clients including the LA Museum of Contemporary Art, The Seaver Institute and several Californian private clients, mostly private equity professionals.

"There are over 700 California foundations with assets between $100 million and $1 billion, many of which are lagging in performance unnecessarily, due to the difficulty associated with identifying and accessing the very small and rare universe of exceptional active asset managers. Many of these institutions' advisors and investment committees do not have either the capabilities or time to build out a strong stable of asset managers, especially in alternative asset classes such as private equity and absolute return,” Murugesu said.

The firm is based in London, Boston, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore. Its institutional clients include nine Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, Eton College, the Met Opera , the Research Foundation for the State of New York's University System, the Royal Academy of Arts, Milton Academy and the Cancer Research Institute.