Major U.S. private equity firms saw their shares decline in premarket trading on Wednesday, following news that Swiss asset manager Partners Group has imposed limits on redemptions from one of its funds.

Partners Group's shares, listed in Zurich, plunged nearly 17% in early trading.

Concerns over asset quality and liquidity risks in alternative assets have been mounting in the market for several months.

The news from the Swiss investment giant has reignited market fears over valuation risks in private markets, leading to broad declines for peers in premarket activity. KKR & Co LP shares fell 4.7%, Blackstone Group LP dropped 3.9%, and Ares Capital declined nearly 2.5%. Blue Owl Capital slid 2.7% and The Carlyle Group was down 3.1%.

Shares of the Swiss asset manager, which focuses on private equity, private debt, infrastructure, and real estate, plummeted 16.6%, hitting a new 52-week low.

According to reports, the firm's $8.6 billion perpetual private equity fund, the Global Value SICAV open-end fund, faced redemption requests amounting to 9.8% of its net assets. The company ultimately set a cap, limiting redemptions in a single period to no more than 5% of the fund's net asset value. This fund represents approximately 4.8% of Partners Group's total assets under management.

The CEO of Partners Group stated to media that redemption pressures, which were previously concentrated in the private credit sector, have now spread to other alternative asset classes.

In recent months, several U.S. private equity firms have implemented similar control measures. In the face of concentrated large-scale investor redemptions, many institutions have suspended or restricted client withdrawals.

Individual investors, concerned about liquidity risks such as maturity mismatches and deteriorating underlying asset quality in private products, have been rushing to submit redemption requests.