Good day Pro PE readers! As we head into the weekend, we’re in for another cold snap here in Massachusetts. Time to break out the slow cooker and drum up some stew. Although the weather may be freezing, the pace of private-equity fundraising activity still seems to be red hot with Preeti Singh reporting that Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe has returned to the fundraising trail seeking $5 billion for its newest fund offering. Preeti also has a column looking at the prospects for increased volume of a certain type of secondary transaction commonly referred to as strip sales as the year unfolds. Finally, I have news about emerging manager Altura Capital, which has rounded up some initial commitments for a pair of new impact investment funds.

Enjoy the weekend and read on for more of today’s news…

Note to readers: Our next newsletter will arrive on Tuesday as we take Monday off to remember the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe is back on the fundraising trail with a goal of collecting at least $5 billion to invest in healthcare and technology companies, WSJ Pro Private Equity’s Preeti Singh writes, citing Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds documents. The firm hasn’t set an upper limit for the latest fund, WCAS XIV LP, and expects to hold a first close later this month, according to public documents prepared for a Wednesday meeting of the pension overseer’s investment council. The firm expects to commit at least $200 million to the fund, the documents show.

Altura Capital, a private-equity firm with a track record of backing small and medium businesses run by diverse leadership, often in underserved areas of the country, has rounded up an initial $110 million for two new funds, Laura Kreutzer writes for WSJ Pro Private Equity. The initial closing puts the funds more than one third of the way toward a combined $300 million goal.

Strip sales, deals in which a private-equity firm sells a slice of some or all of the assets in a fund to secondary buyers, have represented only a small portion of total secondary deal volume in the past couple of years. However, secondary intermediaries and advisers say they expect to see the volume of such transactions pick up in 2022 as they offer firms a way to monetize some of the unrealized gains in their portfolios without selling entire companies outright.  Read more in Singh’s Take.

Partners Group Holding AG in Switzerland has agreed to acquire offshore infrastructure services provider North Star Ltd. from Basalt Infrastructure Partners. The Aberdeen, Scotland-based company has around 1,400 employees and operates dozens of ships that service oil rigs, windmills and other offshore installations, including providing crew transport, emergency rescue and security patrols. Basalt in London acquired North Star in late 2017.

General Atlantic said it has made a growth investment in Chess.com, an online company focused on the game of chess, including online chess games, chess lessons and tutorials, streaming of chess tournaments and facilitation of social communities centered around chess.

Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners in New York has taken private ship operator Teekay LNG Partners LP, paying $17 per share, according to a news release. The Bermuda-based company with some 74 ships that include liquefied natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas carriers is renaming itself Seapeak LLC and expects to change the trading symbols of its preferred shares, which remain trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Atalaya Capital Management, Elm Park Capital Management, HighBar Partners and Benhamou Global Ventures are investing in network and cloud-services monitoring company Virtana, which is the operating name of Virtual Instruments Inc. The firms are collectively making a $73 million growth investment in the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, according to a news release.

New Mountain Capital has acquired a majority stake in life sciences technology company Covaris Inc. The Woburn, Mass.-based company makes equipment used to analyze samples as well as to extract and shear DNA, according to a news release.

True Wind Capital in San Francisco has made a growth investment in technology company W Energy Software, joining existing investor M33 Growth in backing the company. Tulsa, Okla.-based W Energy makes cloud-based applications for accounting and other aspects of the energy industry.

Court Square Capital Partners in New York has recapitalized manufacturing software and services provider GoEngineer Inc. in Salt Lake City. The firm invested alongside founder and Chief Executive Ken Coburn.

Mubadala Capital and Entrepreneurial Equity Partners have acquired freeze-dried fruit and vegetable ingredients provider Mercer Foods LLC from midmarket focused Graham Partners. Graham acquired the Modesto, Calif.-based business in 2016.

Energy-focused Tailwater Capital and Waste Management Inc.’s WM Organic Growth unit have set up a joint venture to back Continuus Materials LLC, a Woodlands, Texas-based company that makes roofing materials from recycled waste.

Marigny Investments in Denver has acquired a majority stake in measurement instruments and industrial fittings distributor Gauge House LLC in Lafayette, La., investing alongside company leader and former owner Ryan Elwell.

Lovell Minnick Partners is backing Warner Pacific Insurance Services Inc. in Westlake Village, Calif., according to a news release. The agency support services provider also has operations in Texas and Colorado.

Brighton Park Capital led a $50 million investment in data analytics and engineering business TheMathCompany Inc., joined by existing investor Arihant Patni, according to a news release.

The energy and renewable-resources investment arm of Fundamental Advisors has set up a $500 million credit facility for solar power project developer Pine Gate Renewables LLC in Asheville, N.C., according to a news release. The company already runs 85 solar projects that can generate more than 1 gigawatt in five states and has a pipeline of new developments expected to produce 19 gigawatts of power.

Bethesda, Md.-based Hull Street Energy said it has made a significant capital commitment to SunGrid Solutions, a Houston-based battery storage services company.

Our add-on deal interactive tool allows you to sort and analyze volumes of add-on deal data compiled by WSJ Pro. View more.

Comvest Partners has sold jewelry retailer Robbins Brothers Jewelry Inc. in Azusa, Calif., to its managers and co-investors that include Main Street Capital Corp. Comvest acquired the business through its private-equity strategy in 2014.

Wise Equity-backed bicycle parts and accessory maker Selle Royal Group aims to go public on the Milan Stock Exchange, Reuters reported, citing a statement from the company. Wise, based in Milan, invested in the family-controlled maker of bike saddles, pedals and other components, last year, according to its website.

Incline Equity Partners has closed on about $940 million in commitments to two fund extension platforms, Incline Elevate Fund II LP and Incline Ascent Fund LP, according to a news release from the Pittsburgh firm. Elevate II collected $630 million and Ascent closed on $310 million. Both funds complement the firm’s nearly $1.17 billion Incline Equity Partners V LP fund, which closed in 2020, expanding its investment range. Sixpoint Partners served as placement agent.

Astorg Partners in Paris has closed a €1.3 billion, the equivalent of $1.49 billion, continuation fund to finance a secondary deal involving IQ-EQ, an investor-services company that the firm initially backed out of Astorg V, a €1.05 billion fund raised in 2011. AlpInvest Partners and the secondary investment unit of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s asset-management arm are among the investors in the transaction, according to a press release.

Canadian private-equity firm Westcap Mgt. Ltd. has raised $285 million for Westcap MBO III Investment LP, well ahead of an initial $150 million target. The firm plans to invest the fund in small and medium-size companies based in Western Canada.

Golding Capital Partners in Munich has closed on its first secondary-investment fund with €280 million, equivalent to $320.4 million, in commitments. The firm said it had targeted €200 million for the vehicle and has already made 14 deals from it, building a portfolio of more than 80 companies. The firm mostly focuses on software, technology and healthcare.

H.I.G. Capital in Miami has promoted Stuart Aronson and Jordan Peer Griffin to executive managing director. Mr. Aronson was also named chief executive of the firm’s direct lender H.I.G. WhiteHorse U.S., while Ms. Griffin leads the firm’s capital formation group globally.

TPG Inc. shares jumped as much as $5.49, or about 19%, in their  trading debut Thursday on the Nasdaq stock market after the firm and a backer in Japan raised around $1 billion at a market value of about $9 billion through an initial public offering, Miriam Gottfried and Corrie Driebusch report for The Wall Street Journal. TPG, based in Fort Worth, Texas, priced its IPO at $29.50 per share. The stock ended the day up 15%, closing at $34.00 per share

The $21.5 billion Orange County Employees Retirement System becomes the latest institutional investor to join the investor-backed Capital Constellation, which takes stakes in private-equity and other private-markets funds. Molly Murphy, the pension's chief investment officer, has joined the firm's strategic committee, according to Daniel Adamson, Capital Constellation's president and a senior managing director at investment adviser Wafra Inc., which manages the portfolio. The Orange County investor is backing a Capital Constellation fund that makes growth investments, Ms. Murphy told WSJ Pro Private Equity’s Preeti Singh. The firm was formed in 2018 by the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., the Public Institution of Social Security of Kuwait and U.K. pension system Railpen.

Partners Group Holding AG in Switzerland ended last year with $127 billion in assets under management, up 17% from the previous year. The firm said it received about $25 billion in new commitments from investors last year and expects to raise $22 billion to $26 billion this year. About half the new money, $12.4 billion, went into Partners’ private-equity strategies, while infrastructure funds collected $4.2 billion and private debt vehicles reeled in $6.1 billion. The firm’s real-estate program collected $2.2 billion.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has delayed its plans to bring employees back to the office again in response to the spread of the Omicron Covid-19 variant, Charley Grant reports in The Wall Street Journal. The bank told employees in an email that they could work from home until Feb. 1, according to a company spokeswoman. The firm had instructed its workers earlier this month to return on Jan. 18.

Several constraints will likely limit renewable resources to a roughly 20% to 40% share of the total power supply in most markets over the next decades, WSJ Pro Private Equity's Luis Garcia reports, citing SailingStone, an investment-advisory firm that focuses on natural resources. The constraints include the volatility of solar and wind power sources and their inability to stabilize power grids, as well as the cost of renewable-energy projects and the significant amount of land they use, SailingStone says. The firm, however, adds it’s still possible to decarbonize the global economy through a mix of renewables, energy storage, zero-carbon conventional power, natural gas and carbon-removal projects.

Churchill Asset Management, an affiliate of asset manager Nuveen that provides financing to sponsor-backed midsize companies, raised $13 billion in new committed capital last year and said it now has about $37 billion of committed capital. Churchill is majority owned by the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, or TIAA.

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Ted Bunker; Laura Cooper; Chris Cumming; Luis Garcia; Laura Kreutzer; Preeti Singh; Chitra Vemuri.

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