David Layton to step aside as Partners Group PE head

David Layton is to relinquish the reins on Partners Group’s private equity business, with the private markets investor tapping the chief executive of a global automotive technology business to fill the post.

Zurich-based Wolf-Henning Scheider will join Partners Group as partner and head of private equity in early 2023 at the conclusion of his current contract, according to a statement. He is CEO and chairman of the board of management at ZF Group, which manufactures systems for passenger cars, commercial vehicles, and industrial technology.

The hiring of a new head of private equity will allow Layton to focus solely on the chief executive position, a spokesperson told Private Equity International. Layton continued to head up the Partners Group’s private equity business after being made co-CEO in 2018 and sole CEO of the firm in 2021. At that time, Partners Group scrapped the co-CEO model with André Frei, who took up the post of co-CEO in 2013, stepping down to take up the position of chairman of sustainability.

Having joined Partners Group in 2005, Layton was previously head of Americas private equity before taking up the global post.

Partners Group has looked outside its own cohort of private equity professionals – and the asset class entirely – as the firm stressed the importance of operational experience alongside investment experience in its statement about the hire of Layton’s successor.

ZF Group, which reported sales of €38.3 billion in fiscal year 2021, said in March that Scheider would not renew his contract at the company, which expires in January next year.

Layton will continue overseeing Partners Group’s private equity group until Scheider joins the firm next year, the spokesperson added.

With more than three decades of senior management experience at diversified industrials companies, Scheider has experienced a wide range of complex corporate events, the spokesperson added. Scheider joined ZF Group in 2018 from Mahle Group where he was also CEO. Prior to joining Mahle, he was previously a member of the board of management of Robert Bosch.

Scheider will focus on Partners Group’s control private equity portfolio, which follows its four industry verticals: goods and products, health and life, services, and technology. The portfolio comprises over 100 owned companies in 23 countries employing more than 250,000 individuals as of 31 March, according to the statement.

“While the term ‘private equity’ conjures up a Wall Street image for some, our private equity approach today is about building businesses – it’s about entrepreneurial governance, strategy, operational excellence and culture,” Layton said in the statement.

“With more than three decades of senior management experience, Wolf is ideally positioned to deepen the operational expertise that underlies our transformational investing efforts. In this changeable macroeconomic environment, the ability to truly transform companies will be a crucial point of differentiation in private equity,” he added.

Scheider is not the first chief executive the firm has brought in to a senior role. In June affiliate title PE Hub reported that Partners Group had hired Ben Breier, the former CEO of Kindred Healthcare. Breier joined as partner and head of its US private equity health and life industry vertical.

In a March 2019 earnings call where executives disclosed Layton’s move to CEO, Layton said the new position would “take up a larger percentage of time. No question about it”, as he took on a number of responsibilities related to the organisation and the executive committee that fell under Frei’s remit, and confirmed he would remain on the investment committee.