Good day, Pro PE readers! Inflation and its impact remain the topics du jour in the news today as the Federal Reserve continues with its efforts to slay the inflation dragon, or at least tame it. The impact of inflation was also one of several hot topics during a virtual event yesterday sponsored by EisnerAmper. Stay tuned for more on that front.

In our news this morning, Luis Garcia dives into Riverstone Holdings’ shift in its credit team’s investment focus away from traditional drilling toward cleaner energy, while our WSJ Pro Venture Capital colleague reports on early signs of investor optimism for Latin America’s venture landscape even as venture investments have fallen. Finally, Alexander Saeedy and Laura Cooper report on the hit that banks took to sell the debt to support the $16.5 billion private-equity buyout of Citrix Systems Inc.

Read on for more details ...

Riverstone Holdings is reshaping its originally oil and gas-focused credit strategy to back renewable-energy companies and other businesses that are helping reduce carbon emissions, as Luis Garcia reports for WSJ Pro Private Equity. Over roughly the past couple of years, the energy-focused firm’s credit team has invested around $300 million in clean-energy companies or traditional energy businesses that are reducing carbon emissions.

After a record-setting 2021, venture funding is down sharply this year in Latin America, but investors remain bullish on a region where the digital transformation of the economy is opening business opportunities and the middle class is growing, Eric Slyvers writes for WSJ Pro Venture Capital.

Investment banks including Bank of America Corp., Credit Suisse Group AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are on track to collectively lose more than $500 million on debt backing the largest U.S. leveraged buyout of the year after it was sold to investors at a steep discount, Alexander Saeedy and Laura Cooper write. The $4 billion in bonds backing the $16.5 billion take-private deal for Citrix Systems Inc. were auctioned off Tuesday at a 16% discount, netting around $500 million in losses alone for underwriting banks, according to people familiar with the matter and pricing term sheets viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Join us on Oct. 3 for a members-only event to discuss how private-equity firms can foster female talent and how women can succeed in launching their own firms. Speakers include Michelle Dipp from Biospring Partners, Hollie Haynes from Luminate Capital Partners and JoAnn Price from Fairview Capital Partners. Sign up here.

BlackRock Inc. has agreed to acquire a majority stake in oral surgery and digital dentistry company Paradigm Oral Health from fellow private-equity firm InTandem Capital Partners and other shareholders, according to an emailed press release. Paradigm has partners with more than 100 surgeons that provide care in 75 facilities across the United States. BlackRock is backing the deal out of its BlackRock Long Term Private Capital unit, which tends to back investments with longer hold periods than the firm’s traditional private-equity funds. The deal is the sixth investment the unit has made and the fourth in North America, the release stated. InTandem backed the company in 2019, according to the firm’s website.

Shamrock Capital has backed a strategic investment in AnswerLab, a user experience research firm founded in 2004 by Chief Executive Amy Buckner Chowdhry. Shamrock Partner Laura Held and Vice President Alicia Zhu are joining Ms. Buckner Chowdry as members of a company board of directors being formed as part of Shamrock’s investment, according to an emailed press release. In addition to growing the company’s research offerings, Ms. Buckner Chowdhry is prioritizing initiatives around diversity, equity and inclusion in the company’s employment and recruiting practices, including a financial commitment of $1 million specifically for such initiatives, the release stated.

Centerbridge Partners and Allianz X, the digital investments arm of Allianz Group, have led a $315 million investment in Pie Insurance, a technology-enabled provider of worker’s compensation insurance to small businesses. Other investors that backed the growth investment include new investor White Mountains Insurance Group, and previous investors Gallatin Point Capital, Greycroft and Acrew Capital, according to a press release. The latest investment brings the total capital Pie has raised so far to more than $615 million, the release stated.

Growth investment firm Lightrock led a growth investment that now totals $290 million in clean power generation company Mainspring Energy Inc., according to a press release. Other investors in the round include the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Shell Ventures and Hanwha Power Systems plus existing investors Khosla Ventures, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Fine Structure Ventures and Princeville Capital. Mainspring raised an initial $150 million for the investment round earlier this year before closing on the additional $140 million, according to a press release.

Vector Capital said it would invest $100 million for a minority interest in cybersecurity company Malwarebytes. Vector Capital Managing Directors Sandy Gill and Dave Fishman will join the company’s board, according to a press release.

GI Partners has acquired four life sciences properties totaling over 407,000 square feet, according to a press release. The properties include Blackstone Science Square, a lab building in Cambridge, Mass., and Peninsula Lab Collection, a portfolio of three lab buildings in San Francisco and San Carlos, Calif.

All Seas Capital has backed Zimmer MedizinSysteme, a family-owned manufacturer of medical devices used in the physiotherapy, aesthetics and select diagnostics fields, according to a press release. Pan-European firm All Seas is backing the deal out of All Seas Capital Fund I, according to a press release.

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

TA Associates has raised more than $1.1 billion for TA Debt Fund V LP, above the fund’s $600 million target, the firm said in a news release. The new fund targets credit investments in both new and existing portfolio companies that the growth investment firm backs out of its private-equity funds.

New Water Capital, a lower midmarket firm focused on consumer-facing businesses and industrial manufacturing and services, has rounded up nearly $112 million so far of the $400 million it is seeking for New Water Capital Partners II LP and a related parallel vehicle, according to a regulatory filing. New Water raised $406 million for its debut fund back in 2015, according to a press release issued at the time.

European private markets firm ICG has named David Lomer as head of U.K., Nordics and Benelux for the firm’s European corporate strategy, according to a press release. Mr. Lomer joins from JPMorgan Chase & Co., where he was most recently co-head of U.K. investment banking, and replaces James Roddis, who is retiring from ICG after 14 years with the firm.

Manna Tree Partners, a Vail, Colo.-based firm focused on investments in health and wellness, has named food and beverage industry veteran Steve Young as a managing director at the firm. Mr. Young most recently served as chief executive of frozen foods manufacturer Bellisio Foods, which was acquired by CP Foods in 2018.

Growth-equity firm Edison Partners has promoted Partner Kelly Ford to a new role as the firm’s first chief operating officer. Ms. Ford has been with Edison for more than eight years, according to a press release.

Private credit firm Strategic Value Partners has added four new professionals to its North American investor relations team.  Greg Lawton, who joins as co-head of investor relations, and Seth Healy, who joins as a managing director, both previously worked at Crescent Capital Group. Liz Bruce, who joins as head of communications and brand, most recently worked as a senior managing director at advisory firm Teneo. Tom Tull, who joins as a senior advisor, most recently served as chief investment officer at the Employees Retirement System of Texas.

Norwest Venture Partners said it has hired Zack Scott as a general partner on the firm’s healthcare investment team. He joins the firm from Revelation Partners, a healthcare-focused secondary firm that he co-founded. Before working in private equity, Dr. Scott was a general surgery resident at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Ore.

Monroe Capital LLC is expanding the institutional and high-net worth business development team with the hiring of Brian Dutzar and Brian Lee as directors and Mark Friedrich as managing director. Mr. Dutzar joined Monroe from Perella Weinberg Partners/Agility, a firm that specializes in outsourced chief investment officer services. Mr. Lee joined from Ashmore Group PLC; and Mr. Friedrich joined from Western Asset Management Co.

Citgo Group Ltd.  appointed firm veteran Claudia Bertolino to head its private equity and private credit and fund services units. Ms. Bertolino has spent more than two decades with Citgo, including as the asset-servicing firm’s fund service’s management Team. In her new role, she will help oversee operational efficiencies and Citgo’s digitization efforts for private equity and private credit.

The heads of the largest U.S. banks are in a state of uncertainty on the economy, based on two days of questioning from lawmakers, The Wall Street Journal reported. In testimony, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon and Citigroup Inc.’s Jane Fraser emphasized the conflicting indicators on the economy, with strong consumer spending and employment coupled with high inflation and macroeconomic uncertainty.

Omers Infrastructure, which manages investments for Canadian pension system Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, has formed a partnership with Spring Lane Capital to explore investments in North American companies that promote sustainability across industries that include food, water, energy, transport and waste, according to a press release.

The City of Baltimore Fire & Police Employees Retirement System has tapped Manulife Investment Management to manage a $100 million private equity co-investment mandate for the pension fund, trade publication Pensions & Investments reports.

Send us your tips, suggestions and feedback. Write to:

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

Follow us on Twitter:@wsjpe, @LHVGarcia, @LauraKreutzer