Last updated: August 7, 2026, 11:39 AM ET

Private Equity Briefing — Past 3 Days

Mega-Deals & Take-Privates

Apollo secured a £5.7bn recommended cash offer for easy Jet, ending a fast-moving four-week bidding contest for the FTSE 100 airline. Bodycote confirmed it received two competing proposals worth £1.56bn from CVC and Veritas Capital Fund IX in a Rule 2.4 statement to the London Stock Exchange. Bear hugs are on the rise in UK take-privates as private equity buyers pursue unsolicited approaches. KKR agreed to acquire Medicover India, adding a 24-hospital multi-specialty network to its healthcare portfolio. Clearlake co-founder Jose Feliciano is nearing a record $3.9bn deal for the San Diego Padres, the most expensive franchise sale in Major League Baseball history. Partners Group is in talks to buy beauty business Aroma-Zone from Eurazeo.

Secondaries Market Heats Up

Pantheon bought a $523m slab of BlackRock TCP Capital's private credit portfolio in a landmark BDC continuation vehicle. The new vehicle will house over $500m of debt positions at 95% of gross fair value as of December 2025. G Squared closed $2.3bn for Fund VII, roughly twice the size of its previous vehicle and raised in half the time. Singapore's GIC is preparing to offload around $1bn of private equity fund stakes on the secondary market. LGT Capital Partners launched its debut credit secondaries strategy with an emphasis on senior lending. GP-leds dominated the secondaries market in H1, driven by fundraising and expansion into new asset classes. Carlyle's Harvey Schwartz said cyclical tailwinds buoying secondaries will persist for the next several years. DraftKings seed investor Ryan Moore closed $78.5m for Revenant Ventures' debut VC secondaries fund. Infrastructure single-asset secondaries are blooming, though discipline and entry valuations remain critical to buyers. Industriens Pension is mulling additional infrastructure secondaries exposure, having committed to all five Pantheon vehicles. Assessing a quick-flip continuation vehicle on the asset's hold period alone is an imperfect metric.

Fundraising Momentum

TPG has secured the lion's share of a $17bn target for TPG X and its third healthcare fund, part of the firm's $94bn Capital platform. Nextalia raised €1.1bn for its second flagship fund in five months, pushing the Italian platform past €3.4bn with commitments from over 200 investors. EQT's €5bn Scaleup Europe Fund made its debut investment, co-leading a €450m round into Finnish satellite operator ICEYE at a €10bn valuation. Italian pension fund ENPAV released an RFP for private equity co-investment. Korea's MMAA seeks to commit 300bn Korean won to domestic blind-pool PE and VC funds. Korea Post Insurance looks to commit 60bn Korean won to domestic blind-pool venture capital funds. Boston Retirement Systems issued an RFP for up to an $85m private equity mandate. Mega-firms are defying fundraising headwinds in earnings season, while OMERS plots a fivefold increase of its PE portfolio. New Jersey sees opportunity in the slow exit market, treating re-ups and new opportunities on equal footing. Hamilton Lane says evergreen hesitancy is only temporary, with investors housing capital before redeeming.

Healthcare & Workforce Services

Carlyle picked up a minority stake in Prime Capital Financial as Abry Partners exits the $50bn AUM wealth platform after three years. Accel-KKR, Bain and Knox Lane are betting on clinical workforce services, while Nordic Capital inks an $800m take-private of BWXT's nuclear medicine business. PE firms are driving tech investments in healthcare workforce services, with LLR Partners among the transacting firms. Tortuga Growth Partners invested in Advanced eClinical Training out of its Fund I. Ares is leading a $2.2bn direct loan to finance Med Impact Holdings' planned acquisition of Puerto Rico-based Medical Card System.

Energy & Infrastructure

LS Power agreed to acquire the Brazos Valley gas-fired power plant from Constellation, satisfying a regulatory divestiture tied to the Calpine acquisition. Partners Group will acquire a majority stake in AVK Power Solutions, a Maidenhead-based provider of power systems for data centers that has installed 3.5GW across Europe's FLAP-D markets. Veritas agreed to acquire Saber Power from Greenbelt, adding a vertically integrated power infrastructure services platform. Arlington-backed TRP Infrastructure closed five add-on deals to form a new highway plastics division called Gulf Highway Materials. Nexa Equity-backed Facility Grid acquired autonomous commissioning company Ping Cx, introducing three integrated offerings. Sunoco agreed to acquire Court Square-backed oil transporter Offen Petroleum for $600m, which delivers approximately 2.5 billion gallons annually to 7,000 customers.

Financial Services & Wealth

Bernard Arnault installed Aymeric Le Clere as chairman and CEO of Financière Agache, the €3.1bn capital holding vehicle that anchors control of LVMH. RedBird's Affinia added Wilson Partners in a UK accounting tie-up, acquiring the Fordhouse-backed firm. KKR-backed FGS acquired government affairs firm Rich Feuer Anderson, its second bipartisan acquisition following Tarplin, Downs & Young. Advent and HarbourVest agreed to acquire FNZ Bank in Germany, which connects more than 50,000 financial advisers and 400 distribution partners. Wind Point Partners took ECI off H.I.G. Capital's hands in a financial services managed services provider handover. Njord Partners says AI is now a natural part of how the firm operates. Njord co-founder Arvid Trolle sees AI as a key part of operational improvements, noting resilience in the value segment.

Consumer & Retail

Bain Capital agreed to acquire Gong cha from TA Associates, adding the global tea beverage chain serving milk tea and fruit tea. MPK Equity-backed Gorgeous Collective acquired Clean Your Dirty Face in its first deal since the platform's launch earlier in 2026. Axum Capital agreed to acquire plant-based and hydration drink brand Barcode, headquartered in Los Angeles.

Venture & Tech

Active startup investors kept up the pace in July, with Khosla and Y Combinator topping dealmaker rankings. Y Combinator's class of repeat founders is growing, with 454 repeat founders in the dataset. Moove raised $250m to scale autonomous vehicle fleet management, with plans to eventually own Waymo robotaxis. Robinhood will list a fund that lets retail investors back Y Combinator startups. Legaltech Wordsmith raised $14m in a Series B extension from Index Ventures and FT Ventures. MagicSchool AI raised $63m from VCs for its educator-founded AI platform. WindBorne Systems raised $37m to scale its weather balloons and AI forecasts. Moss was crowned Europe's newest unicorn with a €30m Series C. Oxylabs hit a $3.6bn valuation after a decade of turning down VCs. Europe saw 144 new funds this year, revealing the region's venture pulse. A16z has over 30 venture scouts hunting for deals across Europe. The top junior VCs in Europe were named by partners. Lendable is chasing the superapp dream, saying it is more constrained by capacity than ideas. Pleo faces a culture crisis amid executive exodus, unhappy staff and sale speculation. The UK expanded its talent visa to more than 100 companies. Europe's 50 most active equity investors in H1 2026 were ranked. Seven spots to meet founders and VCs in Paris were highlighted. Lightspeed found its newest hire via Instagram DM, part of its growing social media presence. Yann LeCun joined new VC firm 224 Ventures with 244 LPs. Startup slang from 'sweaty' to 'insanely cracked' was decoded. AI is transforming physical environments and science sectors, demanding bravery to change processes. QMUL spinouts are looking to raise new funding rounds. Over 127,000 tech workers were laid off at US-based tech companies in 2025, with layoffs continuing into 2026. An AI strategy may be destroying your exit value, argues tech strategic adviser Itay Sagie.

Earnings & Performance

Allianz posted record operating profit for Q2 and H1, driven by €39bn of net inflows as PIMCO and AGI pushed third-party AuM to a record €2.16tn. Carlyle's realisations drove strong earnings, with its US buyout strategy distributing capital at more than double the industry rate. Apollo downplays M&A amid PE consolidation, a year after acquiring a GP.

Other Notable Deals

Copley Equity-backed FMG Leading snapped up Broadbranch Advisors in a deal that closed at the end of July. GSAM is lining up data center contractor Divcon for sale, while Broad Sky closed its sale of Smith + Howard to TPG. Divcon provides building management and electrical power monitoring systems to data centers and mission-critical facilities. Broad Sky grew Smith + Howard 4x before exiting to TPG, noting the durability of tax and audit advisory. PE-backed ContextLogic agreed to acquire chemicals manufacturer gChem from Eagle Tree for $850m, its second operating business after US Salt. Thoma Bravo will sell Command Alkon to Francisco Partners, a software provider for the heavy building materials industry. Ridgemont acquired remediation firm Entact from JFLCO, a national provider of environmental remediation services. Wynnchurch-backed Trimlite bought doormaker Barnett Millworks, expanding its footprint into the Southeast. Verdane made a majority investment in Danish IoT and recurring software company Factbird. Veritas will acquire Trinity Consultants from Oak Hill, which had acquired the environmental consultant in 2021. Music is an 'exceptionally active' market, says Reed Smith's Josh Love, with Thoma Bravo selling Command Alkon and Clearlake partnering with OpenAI. AI has enormous potential to improve administration, metadata management and royalty processing in the music industry, which is seeing some of its biggest deals ever.