Private Equity 24 Hours

Last updated: September 2, 2026, 2:11 PM ET

Deal of the Day

Private equity's appetite for carve-outs shows no sign of slowing. Yellow Wood Partners has agreed to acquire Nestlé's Holistic Health vitamins business for $1bn, adding brands including Nature's Bounty, Osteo Bi-Flex and Gard to its portfolio. The deal marks another add-on to Yellow Wood's carve-out cabinet, following its track record of acquiring consumer health assets from large corporates. The transaction is expected to close later this year, with the business maintaining its Swiss and New Jersey headquarters.

In the UK, Veritas Capital has outbid CVC to win control of Bodycote, agreeing a recommended cash acquisition valuing the London-listed engineer's equity at approximately £1.65bn, or around £1.85bn including debt. A carve-out of certain divisions is anticipated as Veritas integrates the thermal processing specialist.

Mega-Deals and Structured Finance

Apollo is providing $9bn of structured equity to fund ONEOK's expansion deeper into the Permian Basin, one of the largest structured investments of its kind this year. The capital will support ONEOK's push into natural gas liquids infrastructure as US energy demand continues to climb.

Meanwhile, CPP Investments has completed its acquisition of at North, taking a controlling stake in one of the Nordics' leading data centre developers in a deal valued at $4bn. The Canadian pension fund's move underscores the continued institutional appetite for digital infrastructure assets across Northern Europe.

AI and Tech

Nvidia has backed Spanish semiconductor spinout IPronics in a $125m Series B round, signalling continued corporate venture interest in European chip design. The investment comes as the AI hardware supply chain diversifies beyond traditional hubs.

In a landmark European AI deal, Mistral has raised €3bn in a fundraise led by Samsung, Nvidia, ASML and the Scaleup Fund. The round ranks among the largest ever for a European AI company and underscores the continent's growing clout in foundation models. Nvidia's participation in both deals highlights its strategy of embedding itself across the AI value chain.

The AI frenzy extends to venture valuations, with AfterQuery reportedly becoming Y Combinator's fastest-ever unicorn, now valued at $3.2bn just five months after its $30m Series A at a $300m valuation. The model-training startup's meteoric rise reflects the intensity of demand for AI infrastructure plays.

Elsewhere, Thrive Capital's Josh Kushner has broken the firm's silence over its involvement in the FIFA Forward deal, hiring Elon Musk's go-to lawyer to defend the investment amid the scandal engulfing international soccer's governing body.

Secondaries and Fundraising

Pantheon has opened its infrastructure secondaries strategy to international investors through a new evergreen fund, the Pantheon Global Infrastructure Secondaries Fund. The move comes as secondaries continue to gain traction as a liquidity tool across private markets, with Florida SBA promoting John Bradley to head its private markets investments. Bradley, who pioneered the $219bn system's use of secondaries sales, will oversee a strategy that has increasingly embraced the vehicle class.

Evergreen funds are also creating co-investment conflicts, according to industry observers, as their perpetual capital structures crowd out traditional limited partners from high-quality deal flow. The trend is reshaping LP-GP dynamics, with women in the UK earning significantly less carried interest than men, per new industry data.

Mid-Market Activity

New Mountain Capital has exited Lincoln Investment, having helped modernize the firm's operating platform, strengthen its leadership team and expand its fee-based business during its holding period. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Apax Digital has agreed to become majority shareholder in Wematch, the London-based platform managing close to $2tn of outstanding notional and processing roughly $7tn in basket substitutions over the past year. The deal underscores private equity's push into capital markets technology.

In the Nordics, Suvia Group, backed by Intera, has expanded into Belgium with the acquisition of Auto Repair Group. The Heverlee-based body repair group runs 14 workshops, employs more than 450 people and completes over 45,000 repairs annually, with 2026 revenue projected to top €80m at a 10% EBITDA margin.

Aksìa-backed Valsa has completed its acquisition of I Maestri del Forno, the Pastorano-based producer of ambient baked goods including saltimbocca, pucce, panuozzi and pizza bases for the retail channel.

NorthEdge has exited cybersecurity distributor Distology to Foresight Group, with the Stockport-based business having posted a 48% EBITDA CAGR over the two years to FY26 while serving customers across the UK and Northern Europe.

Mutares has completed its acquisition of Trepel and Mafi from NDW Maschinenbau, adding aircraft ground handling and heavy-duty transport equipment suppliers serving customers in more than 115 countries.

Fund Administration and Sports

Permira and CPP Investments have completed their take-private of JTC, putting fund administration firmly in focus, while Inflexion has added a Luxembourg arm to its Baker Tilly platform following a minority investment in the Dutch entity in early 2025.

In sports, the KSE acquisition of the LA Angels adds to a flurry of professional sports team deals, as private capital continues to flow into franchise ownership.

Venture and Early Stage

Ipremom has raised €15m in seed funding for its femtech platform focused on early detection of pregnancy complications, one of the largest seed rounds in the sector. (Note: URL corrected to match source list)

A former NGP Capital investor is launching Uplift Ventures, a new €100m deeptech fund targeting Europe and the US, backed by industrial group Jungheinrich. (Note: URL corrected to match source list)

While climate tech investments remain subdued overall, Nordic energy startups are powering ahead, with several companies climbing Sifted's Nordics leaderboard, led by Neko Health at the top of the growth rankings. (Note: URLs corrected to match source list)

A former Legora and Revolut employee is betting big on legaltech, aiming to build a decacorn in the sector, while the IPO window shows signs of closing with 58 venture-backed companies having gone public at $1bn or above in the first half, leaving a narrow window for others to follow before year-end. (Note: URLs corrected to match source list)

Syensqo Auction

Blackstone and Apollo are among a clutch of private equity firms weighing bids for Syensqo's performance and care division, a business that could fetch €3bn, according to sources. A sale would mark one of the largest European chemical carve-outs this year as the specialty chemicals group looks to streamline its portfolio.