Private Equity 3d Briefing
×Last updated: March 23, 2026, 1:30 PM ET
Dealmaking Activity & Exits
The private equity sector saw a mix of high-value transactions and strategic divestitures, including Francisco Partners agreeing to divest pehub.com music publisher Kobalt to Brookfield-backed Primary Wave, with management, including CEO Laurent Hubert, expected to remain in place. Elsewhere, healthcare services saw a major exit as Olympus Partners moved to offload pehub.com Eye South’s retina business for an announced $1.1 billion. In the industrial space, Apollo and CVC jointly acquired pe-insights.com a 37% minority stake in packaging machinery firm Syntegon, valuing the company at €1.75 billion, intended to drive its next phase of growth. Furthermore, Sovereign concluded its investment pehub.com in Knovia, which saw revenue more than quadruple under its ownership through 15% annual organic growth and tactical acquisitions, as it sold the education platform to Eureka Education.
Activity in the software and technology sector remained brisk, evidenced by Diversis acquiring fintech firm LTi pehub.com, where the co-founders will retain minority stakes and involvement. In a similar M&A vein, Aquiline-backed Relation purchased pehub.com Chinook Insurance Group, while LLR Partners’ portfolio company Viventium expanded its human capital management offerings by snapping up Perks4Care pehub.com, a caregiver rewards platform. Complementing this, Gryphon-backed Rootstock completed the purchase pehub.com of Ascent Solutions, a provider of cloud ERP applications built on the Salesforce platform. Meanwhile, in the UK, One Equity executed a take-private pehub.com of Kitwave, a wholesale distributor of food and consumables to retail and foodservice clients.
Infrastructure & Sector Deployments
Infrastructure-focused funds are showing sustained appetite for large-scale energy assets, with private equity and infrastructure players targeting a $7 billion pipeline deal pe-insights.com in Kuwait as Gulf energy transactions gain momentum. In Southeast Asia, Actis finalized the purchase pe-insights.com of a 90% interest in Singapore-based environmental management company 800 Super, marking a $1.7 billion deployment across the region for the firm, which values the acquired entity for its waste management and recycling services pehub.com. In European energy, Ares Management committed pe-insights.com a minimum of €1 billion as part of a €1.5 billion capital increase for Plenitude, which is valued in the deal at €13.1 billion alongside Eni.
Secondaries Market & Fund Formation
The appetite for portfolio liquidity remains strong, prompting strategic acquisitions in the secondary market, as seen when Mercer’s acquisition bolstered privateequityinternational.com Altamar CAM’s capabilities in secondaries, a move noted by Mercer’s Michael Dempsey as responding to heightened interest in liquidity. Parallel to this, a Japanese secondaries shop is nearing secondariesinvestor.com the hard-cap for its debut fund, RGCM Fund I, which will offer flexibility across direct secondaries and primary funding rounds. In fundraising, Lead Edge Capital successfully secured pe-insights.com $3.5 billion for its seventh fund, signaling a continued commitment to software investments despite market volatility.
Venture Capital & Emerging Tech
The technology investment terrain continues to prioritize AI infrastructure, though venture rounds showed some scaling back, with the largest U.S. deals this week focusing heavily on cybersecurity and privacy news.crunchbase.com. A startup addressing processing constraints, Gimlet Labs secured $80 million techcrunch.com in Series A funding to develop technology that allows AI inference to run simultaneously across disparate chip architectures, including NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. Separately, the artificial intelligence sector is aggressively courting private capital, with OpenAI reportedly offering pe-insights.com guaranteed minimum returns of 17.5% to attract private equity investment into specific joint ventures.
Firm Strategy & Personnel Moves
Institutional investors are reorganizing their mandates, with Australian pension fund Aware Super appointing pe-insights.com Alex Satchcroft to lead its substantial $11 billion private equity portfolio. Meanwhile, investor liquidity remains a key focus, as discussed in the context of potential 'mis-selling' and 'mis-structuring' issues in evergreen funds privateequityinternational.com. In terms of talent acquisition, GTCR brought on Donnie Phillips pehub.com as managing director and chief administrative officer for its Chicago office. ECI also bolstered its partnership ranks by naming David Danon pehub.com, who previously spent nearly two decades within Bain Capital’s private equity team. In the independent sponsor community, former NFL player Terrence Murphy launched Synergy Sports Capital pehub.com, announcing the firm’s debut deal shortly after its unveiling pehub.com.
Sector Focus & Specialized Investment
Research indicates that independent sponsors often target returns exceeding 3x, driven by greater deal selectivity and a preference for lower valuation multiples compared to traditional buyout funds privateequityinternational.com. In specialized areas, AEA Elevate made an investment in Trinamix pehub.com, a technology company serving mid-market and enterprise organizations. Furthermore, the defense sector saw activity, with French-Italian VC 360 Capital raising €85 million sifted.eu for a deeptech fund supported by a European defense prime contractor. Separately, there is a focus on optimizing human performance over mere efficiency in some emerging tech applications, as demonstrated by the development of an AI performance coach sifted.eu.