One scoop to start: LVMH-backed private equity firm L Catterton is launching a $500mn fund with athletes including basketball star Kevin Durant, baseball slugger Mike Trout and golfer Patrick Cantlay, targeting investments in consumer companies. A consortium led by CVC and Prudential Financial is in pole position to take a £1bn-plus stake in Standard Life’s pension-risk transfer business, as investors chase opportunities to back UK retirement plans.

The rise of AI has handed private equity a powerful tool to reshape corporate inner workings. OpenAI is in talks to invest up to $1.5bn into a joint venture with firms including TPG, Bain Capital, Advent International, Brookfield and Goanna Capital, which will invest another $4bn. The venture, called DeployCo, aims to embed OpenAI’s tools into portfolio companies to accelerate growth and boost margins. DeployCo’s clients will primarily be the portfolio companies of the venture’s private equity investors, and will pay the enterprise to embed AI into their businesses.

Anthropic is also in talks with private equity firms including Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and General Atlantic about a joint venture to deploy AI technologies across businesses. AI promises to automate tasks like customer service, coding, and data entry, offering a potential solution to the industry’s struggles with falling returns. While private equity’s bear case involves AI disruption, large gains are also in the cards. Firms known for creativity and aggressiveness may harness AI to drive cost cuts, akin to the 1980s.

The Peltz family’s influence persists. Matt Peltz, son of activist investor Nelson Peltz, founded his own hedge fund after decades at his father’s firm. His first activist position, a roughly 1 per cent stake in Intertek, was made public in a regulatory filing. The FTSE 100 company has faced a potential £9.7bn takeover by EQT and is considering a break-up. The Peltz family’s history of high-profile corporate battles continues, with Intertek becoming the latest focus.