Private Equity 24 Hours

Last updated: August 11, 2026, 8:47 AM ET

Mega-Deals & Take-Privates

Apollo landed a £5.7bn recommended offer for easy Jet in what would be a landmark European take-private. Bernhard Capital agreed to take Bowman Consulting Group private for $1bn, with a 35-day go-shop period. TPG struck a $925m deal for a controlling stake in South Korea's Lotte Rental, the country’s largest car-rental and leasing operator. KKR closed a strategic equity investment in Crowe Advisory, the tax and advisory arm of the global accounting network.

North America PE Activity

New Mountain agreed to acquire fire safety provider Jensen Hughes from Gryphon, highlighting PE appetite for compliance-driven engineering services. Trinity Hunt backed management consulting firm Fisher Management Partners, with founder Todd Fisher remaining in leadership. CCMP Growth-backed Airo acquired specialty plumbing and HVAC firm Legrande’s Enterprises. Quad-C invested in occupational safety platform Paradigm, formed from the combination of Code Red Safety, Concept Controls, and Haz Tek. New Heritage invested in Power Rail, a manufacturer serving the global rail industry. Amberjack Capital closed a carve-out of Flowserve’s PMV Automation group, including facilities in Houston and Sweden. HIG Capital completed the acquisition of UK engineering firm Phoenix ME, which provides mechanical and electrical services to blue-chip clients.

European & Secondaries

Exponent tapped Apollo, Pantheon, and SQ Capital for an $867m (€750m) single-asset continuation vehicle to retain H&MV Engineering. The vehicle values H&MV at €1.4bn. Exponent closed the CV with H&MV providing high-voltage engineering for data centers, battery storage, and renewables. Ardian co-CEO Mark Benedetti sees the most mispricing opportunities in European assets and secondaries, noting more families seek international expansion partners. Provectus Capital made its Romanian debut by acquiring a majority stake in Seatbelt Consulting, the country’s largest occupational health and safety provider. PE Hub reported on PE backing for Europe’s growing HVAC market, with Exponent’s CV and Nvidia partnerships also in focus. A Side Letter highlighted the divergence between continuation fund activity and traditional secondaries, and new ESG rules that could chill private markets.

Infrastructure & AI

Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR plan to mobilize over $500bn for AI infrastructure, turning Nvidia compute and full-stack AI into an investable asset class. Apollo, Blackstone, Brookfield, and KKR are lining up behind Nvidia in this $500bn move. CPP Investments committed $143m for a 49.5% stake in two Hilton hotels in Brazil. StepStone surpassed $20bn in private wealth AUM, with its SPRING vehicle attracting nearly $1.7bn in subscriptions in the quarter. Tony Blair's son is seeking $200m for a new defense startup, per reports. Plymouth County Retirement Association issued an RFP for a North American private equity manager.

Venture & Emerging Markets

Monashees, a leading Latin American VC, is opening a San Francisco office to bridge the region’s startup scene with Silicon Valley. An opinion piece from Crunchbase argues AI is a business change, not a tech layer, requiring redesign of teams and workflows. VCs highlighted 17 physical AI startups to watch. The cofounder of First Momentum shared underrated deeptech areas. South Summit 2026 outlined three trends shaping European tech.

Dealflow & Other

Private equity dealflow had its worst Q2 since 2020, with TMT seeing the biggest drop; VSS took a minority stake in Cordoba amid generational infrastructure reinvestment. VSS (already linked as part of same article) — ensure not double link: we used that URL once. We'll use a different phrase: "generational reinvestment in infrastructure" (but that URL is already linked above). Actually the article URL is the same for both dealflow and VSS. We must link it only once. So we can mention VSS in the same sentence. Already used link on "Private equity dealflow". Good. Then no need to link again. But we have 30 articles; we already linked 1-30? Let's count: we linked 1 (Tony Blair), 2 (CCMP Growth), 3 (Quad-C), 4 (Plymouth), 5 (Trinity Hunt), 6 (New Heritage), 7 (TPG), 8 (Monashees), 9 (AI-Native), 10 (Ardian), 11 (HIG Capital), 12 (Exponent taps), 13 (the vehicle), 14 (Apollo, Blackstone, Brookfield, KKR line up), 15 (South Summit), 16 (PE Hub Europe Wire), 17 (Apollo, BlackRock... $500bn), 18 (Exponent closes €750m), 19 (physical AI startups), 20 (underrated deeptech), 21 (Amberjack), 22 (Apollo easy Jet), 23 (Step Stone), 24 (CPP), 25 (Bernhard Capital), 26 (KKR Crowe), 27 (PE dealflow), 28 (New Mountain), 29 (Provectus), 30 (Side Letter). That's 30. Need to ensure every URL appears exactly once. In the above, we used "Side Letter" link, and "New Mountain" link. Also "Apollo easy Jet" link. All good. But we have a duplicate for "generational reinvestment" — that's fine as it's part of same sentence already linked. However, we used the URL from article 27 only once. So that's correct.

But note: In the "Dealflow & Other" section, we wrote "Private equity dealflow had its worst Q2 since 2020, with TMT seeing the biggest drop; VSS took a minority stake in Cordoba amid generational infrastructure reinvestment." That links to article. Good.

Then we have article 30 (Side Letter) linked as "Side Letter". Good.

We have covered all 30 articles. The briefing is within length. Ensure all links are short key phrases. Some links might be too long? "the €750m vehicle" is 3 words, okay. "Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR" is 7 words, too long. We'll shorten: "Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR" link should be on "Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR" but that's 7 words. Better to link "top PE firms" or "over $500bn". But the article is specifically about those firms. We can link "Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR" as 7 words? The rule says link only 1-4 words. So we need to choose a short phrase. Let's link "top PE firms" on the word "firms"? But that might be inaccurate. Better to link "over $500bn" as that is a key number. Or "AI infrastructure" but that's too generic. Let's change: "plan to mobilize over $500bn for AI infrastructure" - link "over $500bn" is 3 words and captures the key figure. That works. Similarly, for the other Nvidia article, we linked "Apollo, Blackstone, Brookfield, and KKR" - that's 5 words. Need to shorten to 4: "Apollo, Blackstone, Brookfield, and KKR" is exactly 5 words? Count: Apollo (1), Blackstone (2), Brookfield (3), and (4), KKR (5). So. Change to "Apollo, Blackstone, Brookfield, KKR" without "and" - that's 4 words. Better: "Apollo, Blackstone, Brookfield, KKR" (4 words). We'll edit.

Also "Side Letter" is 2 words, fine. "New Mountain" 2 words. "Tony Blair" 2 words. "Plymouth County" 2 words. "CCMP Growth" 2 words. "Quad-C" 2 words. "Trinity Hunt" 2 words. "New Heritage" 2 words. "TPG" 3 letters, 1 word. "Monashees" 1 word. "AI-Native" 1 word? Actually hyphenated counts as one word. "Ardian" 1 word. "HIG Capital" 2 words. "Exponent tapped" - we used "Exponent" as 1 word, but the article is about Exponent tapping. That's fine. "the vehicle" - 2 words. "Apollo, Blackstone, Brookfield, KKR" - 4 words. "over $500bn" - 2 words (over and $500bn is one unit? Usually $500bn is one word? In markdown link, "over $500bn" is three tokens: "over", "$500bn". It's acceptable. We can do "$500bn" alone. Let's adjust: "plan to mobilize $500bn(url)" — that's one word "$500bn". That's better. Similarly, for the other Nvidia article, we can link "$500bn move" as two words? Or "Nvidia" alone? But the article is about multiple firms. We'll link "Apollo, Blackstone, Brookfield, and KKR" - we can link "line up behind Nvidia(url)" but the URL is different. We already have a separate article about Nvidia partnerships with those firms. That article's URL is unique. We need to link a short phrase from that article's content. We'll link "line up behind Nvidia" - but "line up behind Nvidia" is four words? "line up behind Nvidia" is 4 words (line, up, behind, Nvidia). That works. Or simply "Nvidia" alone. But the article is specifically about the line-up. Let's use "line up behind Nvidia" as 4 words.

We also have article 14 (PE Insights) and article 17 (PE Hub) about similar topic. They are distinct URLs. Already linked. Good.

Now ensure no missing articles. We used article 15 (South Summit) link "South Summit" — but the article title is "South Summit 2026: Three trends shaping the future of European tech". We linked "South Summit" as 2 words. That's fine.

Article 19 (physical AI startups) linked as "VCs highlighted 17 physical AI startups to watch" - we linked "17 physical AI startups" as 5 words? Actually we wrote: "VCs(url) highlighted 17 physical AI startups to watch." The link is on "VCs" which is 1 word, but that article is about the VCs watching the startups, not about VCs in general. The URL is correct for article. But we also have article 20 (underrated deeptech) with link on "cofounder". That's fine.

Article 16 (PE Hub Europe Wire) linked as "PE Hub" — but that URL is the Europe Wire article. That's fine.

All 30 links appear once. We'll now produce the final briefing with corrected short links.

Final output: Write as complete briefing. No metadata. Start with bold headers. Ensure each link is only 1-4 words. Restructure if needed. Keep under 1350 words. We'll write concisely. Ready.