Private Equity 3 Days

Last updated: August 8, 2026, 8:40 PM ET

Mega Deals & Take-Privates

Apollo secured a recommended cash offer for easy Jet valuing the FTSE 100 airline at approximately £5.7bn, ending a four-week bidding contest. KKR agreed to acquire Medicover India, adding a 24-hospital multi-specialty network to its portfolio. Pantheon bought $523m of BlackRock TCP Capital’s private credit book in a landmark BDC continuation vehicle. Ares Management is leading a $2.2bn direct loan to finance Med Impact Holdings’ acquisition of Medical Card System. Sunoco will acquire Court Square-backed Offen Petroleum for $600m, a fuel distributor delivering 2.5 billion gallons annually. LS Power is acquiring Brazos Valley gas-fired power plant from Constellation in a regulatory divestiture. Partners Group will take a majority stake in AVK Power Solutions, which has installed approximately 3.5GW for data centers. CVC and Veritas Capital are vying for Bodycote, while Partners Group is separately in talks to buy Aroma-Zone from Eurazeo. Goldman Sachs Asset Management is lining up data center contractor Divcon for sale. Veritas Capital will acquire Greenbelt-backed Saber Power Services, a power infrastructure platform. RedBird’s Affinia added Wilson Partners in a UK accounting tie-up. Carlyle picked up a minority stake in Prime Capital Financial as Abry Partners exited the $50bn AUM wealth platform. Bear hugs are on the rise in UK take-privates, according to deal advisers.

Platform Builds & Add-Ons

Wise Equity inked an agreement to acquire E-Pharma Trento, which may explore bolt-on acquisitions. Eir Partners invested in Claims Bridge and supported the add-on of Dialysis PPO. FMG Leading, backed by Copley Equity, snapped up Broadbranch Advisors. Gorgeous Collective, an MPK Equity platform, acquired Clean Your Dirty Face. Tortuga Growth Partners invested in Advanced eClinical Training out of its Fund I. Facility Grid, backed by Nexa Equity, acquired autonomous commissioning firm Ping Cx. TRP Infrastructure, an Arlington-backed platform, closed five add-on deals to form a new highway plastics division. Verdane made a majority investment in Factbird, a Danish IoT and manufacturing intelligence company. Broad Sky grew Smith + Howard 4x before exiting to TPG. Accel-KKR, Bain and Knox Lane are among firms transacting in healthcare workforce services, a sector seeing a tech push. Accel-KKR, Bain, Knox Lane also feature in a radiopharma deal alongside Nordic Capital’s $800m take-private of BWXT’s nuclear med biz.

Fundraising & Secondaries

Pantheon backed BlackRock BDC’s credit continuation vehicle, which will house over $500m of debt positions priced at 95% of gross fair value. G Squared secured $2.3bn for Fund VII, about twice the size of its predecessor and raised in half the time. GP-leds dominated the secondaries market in H1, driven by fundraising and expansion into new asset classes. Infra single-asset secondaries are blooming as a liquidity tool, but discipline and entry valuations remain critical. Industriens Pension of Denmark is mulling more infra secondaries exposure, favouring indirect commitments. The shorter the hold, the higher the burden when assessing quick-flip continuation vehicles. New Jersey sees opportunity in the slow exit market, with CIO Shoaib Khan re-evaluating re-ups and new opportunities equally. Mega-firms are defying fundraising headwinds, per earnings season learnings. ENPAV, the Italian pension fund, released an RFP for private equity co-investment. MMAA seeks to commit 300bn Korean won to domestic blind-pool PE/VC funds. Korea Post Insurance looks to commit 60bn Korean won to domestic blind-pool VC funds.

Venture & Startup Activity

A big week for big checks saw three startups secure $1bn+ rounds. July active investors kept up the pace, with Khosla and YC leading deal counts. Repeat founders are growing at Y Combinator, with 454 repeat founders in the dataset. A16z has 30+ venture scouts hunting for deals across Europe. Lendable is chasing the superapp dream, constrained more by capacity than ideas. Pleo faces a culture crisis with executive exodus and sale speculation. QMUL spinouts are looking to raise. Europe’s top 50 equity investors in H1 2026 have been ranked. Junior VCs to watch in Europe are named by partners. Seven spots to meet founders and VCs in Paris are highlighted.

Other Highlights

Bernard Arnault installed Aymeric Le Clere as CEO of Financière Agache, the €3.1bn holding vehicle for LVMH control. Allianz posted record Q2 operating profit driven by €39bn of net inflows, pushing PIMCO and AGI third-party AuM to a record €2.16tn. The UK expanded its talent visa to more than 100 companies.