Private Equity 3 Days

Last updated: August 7, 2026, 2:52 PM ET

Megadeals & Takeovers

Apollo secured a recommended cash offer for easy Jet valuing the FTSE 100 airline at approximately £5.7bn, ending a fast-moving four-week bidding contest in a landmark European take-private. The deal highlights how “bear hugs” are on the rise in UK take-privates as buyers move aggressively to secure targets. In a separate contested situation, Bodycote confirmed receipt of two competing conditional cash offer proposals from CVC and Veritas Capital Fund IX, with the heat treatment specialist attracting £1.56bn in rival bids. KKR has agreed to acquire Medicover India, the Indian hospital operations of Nasdaq Stockholm-listed Medicover AB, adding a 24-hospital multi-specialty network to its healthcare portfolio. Bain Capital is set to acquire the Gong cha bubble tea chain from TA Associates, expanding its consumer brands portfolio.

Credit & Private Capital

Ares Management is leading a $2.2bn direct loan to finance Med Impact Holdings' planned acquisition of Puerto Rico-based Medical Card System, according to Bloomberg. BlackRock TCP Capital has agreed to sell a $523m slab of its private credit portfolio to funds and accounts managed by Pantheon, in a landmark BDC continuation vehicle. The new vehicle will house over $500m of debt positions held by TCPC, with pricing coming in at 95% of gross fair value as of 31 December 2025. Allianz posted record operating profit for the second quarter and first half of 2026, with the standout contribution coming from its asset management arm, which saw €39bn of net inflows as PIMCO and AGI pushed third-party AuM to a record €2.16tn.

Secondaries & Fundraising

G Squared has secured $2.3bn for its seventh flagship secondaries fund, which is about twice the size of its previous vehicle and took half as long to raise as venture secondaries heat up. Singapore's GIC is preparing to offload around $1bn worth of private equity fund stakes on the secondary market, according to sources cited by Bloomberg, as sovereign wealth funds keep tapping the market. VC investor Ryan Moore has closed on $78.5m for Revenant Ventures' debut fund, a regulatory filing shows, marking the Draft Kings seed investor's entry into venture secondaries. Carlyle increasingly views AlpInvest as more of a corporate finance business than a standalone secondaries unit, with cyclical tailwinds buoying the market expected to persist for the “next several years.” GP-leds dominated the secondaries market in the first half of the year, with fundraising and expansion into new asset classes driving growth beyond what market volatility alone would explain. The single-asset secondaries market within infrastructure is blooming, though discipline, alignment and entry valuations remain critical to ensuring buyers secure good deals. Industriens Pension is mulling adding more infrastructure secondaries exposure, with the Danish retirement scheme favouring indirect over direct investment and having made commitments to all five infra secondaries vehicles managed by Pantheon.

Fund Launches & Closures

The EQT-managed Scaleup Europe Fund has made its first investment, co-leading a €450m round into Finnish satellite imaging company ICEYE at a €10bn valuation, debuting its €5bn fund with a substantial cheque. Nextalia held a first close of more than €1.1bn on Nextalia Private Equity II, pulling in commitments from over 200 investors in the five months since it opened fundraising in February and pushing the Italian platform past €3.4bn. TPG has nabbed the lion's share of a $17bn target for TPG X and its third healthcare fund, both launched in mid-2025 as part of the firm's $94bn Capital platform. Mega-firms are largely defying fundraising and exit headwinds in the latest earnings season, while OMERS is plotting a fivefold increase of its PE portfolio. Hamilton Lane's co-chief Erik Hirsch said some investors have been “housing capital” in evergreens before redeeming to fund a Hamilton Lane SMA, calling the hesitancy only temporary.

LP Activity & Mandates

The New Jersey Division of Investment is looking at re-ups and new opportunities on equal footing, with CIO Shoaib Khan saying the fund sees opportunity in the slow exit market despite being spared liquidity concerns. Italian pension fund ENPAV has released a request for proposal seeking private equity co-investment opportunities. MMAA looks to commit 300bn Korean won to domestic blind pool private equity and venture capital funds for 2026. Korea Post Insurance is seeking to commit 60bn Korean won to domestic blind-pool venture capital funds. Boston Retirement Systems has issued a request for proposal for up to an $85m private equity mandate.

Venture & Growth

Active startup investors kept up the pace in July, with familiar names topping the ranks in several metrics including most prolific venture dealmakers, most active lead backers, and biggest spenders. Moove is scaling up the autonomous vehicle fleet management side of its business after raising $250M, and plans to someday own, not just manage, Waymo robotaxis. WindBorne Systems has raised a $37 million Series B round to scale its weather balloons and AI forecasts, betting that AI can make weather prediction both better and lucrative. Fintech startup Moss has been crowned Europe's newest unicorn with a €30m Series C round. Oxylabs has hit a $3.6bn valuation after a decade of turning down VCs, with the founder citing “right timing, right partner.” Legaltech Wordsmith has raised a $14m Series B extension from Index and FT Ventures, according to an exclusive report. Y Combinator's growing class of second-time founders includes 454 repeat founders, according to a dataset shared directly with Crunchbase News. Robinhood is set to list a fund that lets any retail investor back Y Combinator startups, democratizing access to early-stage venture.

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Accel-KKR, Bain, Knox Lane and LLR Partners are among the PE firms transacting in healthcare workforce services, with eight deals highlighting the tech push in this sector. Nordic Capital has inked a radiopharmaceutical deal involving an $800m take-private of BWXT's nuclear medicine business, while clinical workforce services continue to attract private equity interest. Tortuga Growth Partners has invested in Advanced eClinical Training out of Tortuga Growth Partners Fund I, L.P. Veritas is set to acquire environmental consultant Trinity Consultants from Oak Hill, which acquired the firm in 2021 from LLCP for undisclosed terms. Veritas will also acquire Saber Power from Greenbelt, adding a vertically integrated power infrastructure services platform that helps customers build, modernize and maintain critical electrical systems.

Infrastructure & Energy

Partners Group has agreed to acquire a majority stake in AVK Power Solutions, a Maidenhead-based provider of power systems for data centers and AI infrastructure that has delivered more than 20,000 projects and installed approximately 3.5GW of power across Europe's FLAP-D markets. LS Power has agreed to acquire the Brazos Valley gas-fired power plant from Constellation, a transaction that satisfies a regulatory divestiture commitment tied to Constellation's 2025 acquisition of Calpine. Sunoco will acquire Court Square-backed oil transporter Offen Petroleum for $600m, with the target operating a fuel distribution network delivering approximately 2.5 billion gallons annually to approximately 7,000 customers. Goldman Sachs Asset Management is teeing up Divcon Controls for sale, with the company providing building management and electrical power monitoring systems to data centers and other mission-critical facilities. GSAM is also lining up data center contractor Divcon for sale, while Broad Sky has closed the sale of professional services firm Smith + Howard to TPG.

Industrial & Business Services

PE-backed ContextLogic will acquire chemicals manufacturer gChem from Eagle Tree for $850m, with gChem becoming Context Logic's second operating business following its early 2026 acquisition of US Salt. Arlington-backed TRP Infrastructure has closed five add-on deals to form a new highway plastics division called Gulf Highway Materials. Thoma Bravo will sell Command Alkon, a software and platform technology provider for the heavy building materials industry, to Francisco Partners. Copley Equity-backed FMG Leading has acquired Broadbranch Advisors, with the deal closing at the end of July. RedBird's Affinia has added Wilson Partners in a UK accounting tie-up, with the target advising small and medium-sized enterprises, private individuals and private equity investors. Ridgemont has acquired remediation services firm Entact from JFLCO, a national provider of environmental remediation and geotechnical construction services. Nexa Equity-backed Facility Grid has acquired autonomous commissioning company Ping Cx, introducing a new product strategy centered on three integrated offerings — FG Construct, Validate, and Sustain.

Consumer & Retail

MPK Equity-backed Gorgeous Collective has acquired Clean Your Dirty Face, marking the first acquisition for the platform since its launch earlier in 2026. Axum Capital has agreed to acquire beverage brand Barcode, a Los Angeles-based plant-based and hydration drink company. Partners Group is in talks to buy beauty business Aroma-Zone from Eurazeo, adding to a busy period for the Swiss manager. Verdane has made a majority investment in Factbird, a Danish IoT and recurring software company providing manufacturing intelligence services.

Corporate Governance & Structures

Bernard Arnault has named Aymeric Le Clere as chairman and CEO of Financière Agache, the €3.1bn capital holding vehicle that anchors the Arnault family's control of LVMH, according to a filing in the latest reshuffle of the LVMH holding structure. Clearlake co-founder Jose Feliciano is nearing a record $3.9bn MLB deal for the San Diego Padres, which would be the most expensive franchise sale in Major League Baseball history. KKR-backed FGS Global has scooped up government affairs firm Rich Feuer Anderson, marking FGS's second acquisition of a bipartisan government affairs firm following the September 2025 acquisition of Tarplin, Downs & Young. Apollo, a year after acquiring a GP, is downplaying manager consolidation while also backing a novel first-time fund, according to PE International's Side Letter.

Market Trends & Analysis

Carlyle's US buyout strategy distributed capital at more than double the industry rate, driving strong earnings in the latest quarter, chief executive Harvey Schwartz noted on the firm's results call. The music industry is seeing some of the biggest deals it has ever seen, according to Reed Smith's Josh Love, with AI having enormous potential to improve administration, metadata management, royalty processing and licensing efficiency. PE firms like Blackstone, TPG and EQT have been active in partnering with AI businesses, while Thoma Bravo is selling Command Alkon to Francisco Partners. While integrating AI into a startup's product strategy is often viewed as a way to enhance valuation, it can inadvertently reduce exit value, argues tech strategic adviser Itay Sagie. Special situations investor Njord Partners is seeing “resilience” in the value segment, including in the exit market, with AI now a “key part” of operational improvements. Over 127,000 workers at U.S.-based tech companies were laid off in mass job cuts in 2025, per a Crunchbase News tally, with layoffs continuing into 2026. Assessing a quick-flip continuation vehicle on the asset's hold period alone is an imperfect metric, according to PE International. The UK has expanded its talent visa to more than 100 companies, broadening access for international tech workers.