Happy Friday! As we head into the weekend, private credit has once again dominated private markets headlines and not in a particularly uplifting way.

This morning’s top stories all relate to challenges and disputes in the private credit world. Our Journal colleagues report on continued redemption requests from investors in private credit interval funds and semi-liquid business development companies, including Blackstone’s massive Bcred fund.

Meanwhile, our own Chris Cumming has news about a lawsuit from a fund managed by credit investor O’Connor Alternative Investments against law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman that accuses the firm and one of its partners of fraud linked to online bank Aspiration Partners.

Read on for more and have a great weekend…

Investors in Blackstone’s flagship private-credit fund, known as Bcred, asked to redeem 10% of their shares in the second quarter, up from about 8% in the first quarter. That amounted to investors asking for $4.4 billion, Matt Wirz reports for the Journal. Blackstone will limit redemptions from the $79 billion fund to 5%, a reversal from its strategy in March when it opted to pay the full amount requested. The about-face highlights rising financial strain on managers of large private-credit funds marketed to individual investors who continue to ask for their money back.

A credit fund managed by O’Connor Alternative Investments on Tuesday filed a lawsuit accusing law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and one of its partners, Riaz Karamali, of participating in a fraud linked to celebrity-backed online bank Aspiration Partners, Chris Cumming writes for WSJ Pro.  Pillsbury and Karamali denied the accusations.

WSJ Sports: The Next Sports Economy will bring together investors, team owners, executives and advisers at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York July 15-16 for conversations on the forces transforming the business of sports. Join leaders from across finance, media, ownership and operations as they sit down with WSJ reporters to explore the future of investment, governance and value creation across the global sports landscape.

Iconiq Capital, Singapore's GIC and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan led a $750 million growth investment in purchasing and financial management software provider Ramp Business Corp. in a deal that valued the New York company at about $44 billion. Among the many other participants in the deal were the alternatives arm of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley Investment Management and Insight Partners as well as over a dozen existing backers.

Bond Capital led a more than $400 million growth investment in music software developer Suno, joined by others including Union Square Ventures and existing backers. The deal valued the business at $4.5 billion.

One Investment Management in Abu Dhabi is acquiring a roughly 15% stake in T&D Financial Life Insurance in Japan, marking the firm's first entry into the Asian country. The investment comes as SoftBank Group unit PayPay is taking a 70% stake in the insurer for an estimated ¥134.34 billion, equivalent to $839.2 million, Megan Cheah reports for Dow Jones Newswires. Japanese mobile-payments platform PayPay plans to add life insurance to its suite of services through the deal.

Brand Velocity Group, a sports-investment firm whose partners include former NFL quarterback Eli Manning, has acquired youth programs operator RCX Sports from Raine Partners. Other investors that supported the deal include Hamilton Lane and St. Cloud Capital.

Igneo Infrastructure Partners has made a preferred equity investment in Pathway Power, marking the infrastructure investment firm’s entry into the U.S. utility-scale renewable and storage development market, according to an emailed announcement. Pathway Power has a portfolio of more than 1 gigawatt of projects expected to begin construction this year and next.

Consumer-focused VMG Partners has led a $20 million investment in Scotch, an artificial intelligence-driven technology company that supports retail liquor sales operations. Other investors that backed the transaction include First Round Capital, Lerer Hippeau and Toba Capital.

German investment firm Aequita in Munich is acquiring the non-defense business of manufacturer Rheinmetall Group for €350 million, or $406 million, through a carve-out transaction. The company's Power Systems division generated revenue of about €2 billion last year and has about 6,250 employees.

Credit investor Silver Point Capital is backing a term loan facility to support the acquisition of Signal Peak Silica by Iron Oak Energy Solutions, whose backers include Anchorage Capital Advisors, Golden Gate Capital, NGP, High Roller Group and HPS Investment Partners. Signal Peak manufactures and resells granular materials, or local proppant, that are used in hydraulic fracturing in the oil and gas industry.

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

Blackstone-backed Liftoff Mobile shares closed up more than 23% in their trading debut Thursday at $28.45 each, after pricing its initial public offering of 19 million shares above the expected range at $23 each to raise $437 million, Colin Kellaher reports for Dow Jones Newswires. Blackstone held about 57% of the Redwood City, Calif.-based mobile app advertising software company's shares before the offering while General Atlantic had 16%.

Advent International-backed Innio priced its upsized initial public offering at $27 a share Thursday on the Nasdaq stock market, Colin Kellaher reports for Dow Jones Newswires. The stock later rose to end at $33.30. The 90 million shares being sold to raise $2.43 billion are held by a joint venture between Boston-based Advent and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority sovereign-wealth fund, which held 100% of the company's 750 million shares before the IPO.

Turnspire Capital Partners has sold maintenance and metering company USG Water Solutions to Warren Equity Partners. Turnspire carved the business out of Veolia in 2023.

Boston-based growth equity firm Volition Capital is seeking $875 million for Volition Capital Fund VI, according to a regulatory filing. The new fund’s goal exceeds the $675 million the firm raised for its fifth, and so far largest, fund back in 2023.

Dimension Capital, a venture firm that backs companies at the intersection of technology and biology, is seeking $750 million for Dimension Capital Fund III, a regulatory filing shows. The new fund is hitting the market around two years after the firm wrapped up its second fund with $500 million.

Partners Group reiterated its expectation of bringing in $26 billion to $32 billion in new capital this year, despite any drag from withdrawals from its evergreen funds. However, as Nina Kienle reports for the Journal, the firm expects those redemptions to slow its overall growth in assets under management in this year's second half and in 2027. Earlier this week, Partners held to its 5% withdrawal limit for its $8.6 billion Global Value Sicav fund after investors sought to pull out nearly twice that amount. Even with redemptions from those retail-focused vehicles, the Swiss buyout firm expects capital inflows to exceed outflows this year. But withdrawals from evergreen funds may slow growth by as much as 2% in this year's second half. Separately, the firm received second-quarter withdrawal requests for around 6% of the roughly $17 billion Partners Group Private Equity U.S. fund, but will hold to its 5% cap for the periodic redemptions.

IPO-crazed investors have gobbled up stock offerings from a data-center buyer, AI provider, chip maker, automotive-software developer and geothermal power producer. But the latest bonanza surrounds a historic silver mine in Idaho that hasn’t been fully operational for a quarter century, Ryan Dezember writes for the Journal. Sunshine Silver Mining & Refining, which is controlled by billionaire Thomas S. Kaplan’s Electrum Group, raised $270 million in an initial public offering that valued the company at $1.9 billion.

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Maria Armental; Ted Bunker; Chris Cumming; Luis Garcia; Laura Kreutzer; Isaac Taylor; Chitra Vemuri.