Partners Capital Opens West Coast Office

12 December 2018

Partners Capital Opens West Coast Office

The only truly global pure Outsourced Investment Office, Partners Capital, opens its San Francisco office in its 18th year of operation, to be headed by a young alum from its London office.
With its key hubs in London, Boston and Singapore, Partners Capital’s CEO Stan Miranda moves against his historical preference for fewer offices and returns to his home state of California to spearhead building out a West Coast presence focused on its core clients of foundations, endowments and wealthy investment professionals.

Partners Capital, the $24 billion assets under management Outsourced Investment Office acting for endowments and foundations and ultra-high-net-worth families in Europe, North America and Asia, today announces the planned opening of its West Coast office in July 2019, to be headed by Sudharshan (“Sud”) Murugesu. Sud joined Partners Capital in 2013 after five years of principal investing roles with private equity firm Bain Capital and hedge funds Marshall Wace and Vantage Investment Management. Sud is a graduate of Cambridge University where he was an academic scholar.

In 2017, Partners Capital supported Sud’s entry to Harvard Business School, from which he will graduate in 2019 and move to San Francisco. However, as discussed in a recent Bloomberg interview with Partners Capital Founder and CEO, Stan Miranda, the firm is keen to accelerate its activities on the West Coast and Stan himself has already relocated part-time to the Bay Area. Stan will be working 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.

Founder and CEO of Partners Capital, said, “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. Asset managers across every asset class should be transforming their businesses in terms of how they source, analyze, 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.”

Stan plans to split his time in the coming years between the West Coast and Europe, continuing to serve many of the firm’s flagship clients located across Europe. The focus of Stan, Sud and the West Coast team will be firstly on building out a deeper stable of talented asset managers operating out of the Western States including not only venture capital firms, but also the growing number of extraordinary hedge funds, specialist private lending firms and high-quality private equity firms. Partners Capital already has strong relationships with West Coast asset managers including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital, DoubleLine, Post Advisory Group, amongst others.

The San Francisco office will support the Partners Capital Boston and New York teams serving many of its existing West Coast clients, including the LA Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), The Seaver Institute and several Californian private clients, mostly private equity professionals. Critically, the firm is focused on expanding its footprint with smaller foundations and endowments across the Western States like MOCA. Sud Murugesu, said, “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”.

Partners Capital often works with its wealthy private clients in helping them establish their own philanthropic foundations. With the extraordinary capital formation from the burgeoning tech industry, Partners Capital expects its capabilities in serving both private clients and foundations will find a welcome audience in the Bay Area. Partners Capital’s Chairman, Paul Dimitruk, said, “helping successful tech entrepreneurs and financial professionals establish their own family foundations is a passion of the firm’s leadership team. We seek to help these successful individuals set up well-invested permanent funding sources for their missions that outlive them and make a real difference in the world”.

It is CEO Stan Miranda’s expectation that the office will start from its current operating location in San Francisco and will be kept small at five to seven professionals by the end of 2019. The West Coast team will be supported primarily by the Boston office of 47 professionals but will also work closely with the other offices.