Good morning. In Wisconsin, a group representing bar and restaurant owners has succeeded in getting a court to bar new state restrictions on their operations in order to curtail the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that a renewed lockdown would force many of its members out of business. The court blocked a rule that limited the operations to no more than 25% of capacity. You have to wonder if the same logic could apply across the country where health-minded regulators and political leaders have been retightening public-health tourniquets that threaten to strangle many businesses, or already have. 

In news closer to home, the Journal’s Miriam Gottfried and Dave Michaels report on Vista Equity Partners’ Robert Smith, who is said to have reached a settlement with the Justice Department over personal financial issues. Our Luis Garcia has a look at efforts by Mexico City-based Alta Growth Capital to invest amid a shaky Mexican economy, while our Chris Cumming has news on a massive new secondaries fund raised by HarbourVest Partners. Finally, our colleague Jennifer Smith has the details on a blank-check deal involving Insight Partners-backed software provider E2open LLC that values the company at about $2.57 billion. For these stories and much more, please read on...

Robert Smith, the billionaire chief executive of Vista Equity Partners, has reached a $140 million settlement with the Justice Department, ending a yearslong criminal tax probe, Miriam Gottfried and Dave Michaels report for The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter. As part of the settlement, Mr. Smith will enter into a non-prosecution agreement, the people said. He will admit liability for additional taxes owed and not properly filing foreign bank account reports, but won’t be prosecuted. He will agree to abide by certain conditions set forth by the government, the people said.

Alta Growth Capital is taking a cautious approach to investing its third Mexico-focused fund, which it recently closed with $150 million in commitments, even as the firm pursues opportunities in a market shaken by the coronavirus pandemic, Luis Garcia writes for WSJ Pro Private Equity. “I think everybody is still trying to figure out exactly where things are going with Covid and the economy, not just in Mexico but globally,” said Scott McDonough, a co-founder and managing director at the Mexico City firm. “There’s still a lot of uncertainty about where these economies are going.”

HarbourVest Partners has wrapped up fundraising for its largest-ever flagship secondaries fund, WSJ Pro Private Equity’s Chris Cumming reports. The fund, Dover Street X LP, closed at its hard cap with $8.1 billion, including the general-partner commitment. Investors included pensions, endowments, corporations, sovereign-wealth funds and others, Boston-based HarbourVest said. The fund’s size is a major step up from the firm’s predecessor fund, which closed at $4.77 billion in 2016.

Supply-chain software provider E2open LLC, backed by Insight Partners, plans to go public through an agreement with a blank-check company, making it the latest in a stream of companies bypassing the traditional path to a Wall Street listing, Jennifer Smith writes for The Wall Street Journal’s Logistics Report. Austin, Texas-based E2open is set to merge with CC Neuberger Principal Holdings I, a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in a deal that would value the company at about $2.57 billion, the companies said Wednesday. CC Neuberger is led by senior professionals of private-equity firm CC Capital Partners and asset manager Neuberger Berman Group.

Apollo Global Management has acquired a collection of cellular telephone towers and development projects from LendLease Group, buying a business that LendLease bought in 2017. Apollo renamed the group as Parallel Infrastructure, the same name the business had before the LendLease acquisition. The business, which has nearly 500 towers in operation and plans to build several hundred more, is based in Charlotte, N.C., and is run by Yannis Macheras as chief executive. Apollo’s infrastructure investing team is led by Dylan Foo and Geoff Strong, both senior partners with the New York firm.

Singapore sovereign wealth investor GIC and Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates’s Cascade Investment have backed family-owned self-storage company StorageMart, giving it an enterprise value of about $2.7 billion. GIC and Cascade acquired a minority stake in the Columbia, Mo.-based business, which is owned by Stanley Kroenke and run by the Burnam family.

Clayton, Dubilier & Rice has closed its $4.7 billion acquisition of industrial enterprise software provider Epicor Software Corp. from KKR & Co., including debt. CD&R Partner Jeff Hawn has become chairman of the company. KKR bought Epicor in 2016 for around $3.3 billion, including debt, from private-equity firm Apax Partners.

European consumer-focused private-equity firm BlueGem Capital Partners has agreed to purchase French baby-care products company Béaba Group from Bridgepoint Group, Indigo Capital and Société Cantilienne de Participations. BlueGem said the deal pre-empted a sales process for the company that had begun last summer. The group has annual revenue of nearly €50 million (about $58.7 million) and includes the Béaba and Red Castle brands.

Inflexion has acquired a majority stake in technology training company Sparta Global, investing in the business through its lower middle-market fund, Inflexion Enterprise Fund V. The London-based company provides post-graduate courses in data engineering and business analysis.

Swedish private equity firm Summa Equity has acquired a majority stake in Singapore-based precision medicine company Sengenics, Elisângela Mendonça reports for sister publication Private Equity News in London. The deal was made through the firm’s second fund, which closed at nearly $700 million in early 2019.

Communications and technology services specialist M/C Partners in Boston has acquired commercial and residential internet services provider AerioConnect LLC. The company serves more than 9,000 subscribers in some 400 buildings in the Los Angeles market.

London-based private equity firm Actis is betting on the expansion of the digital infrastructure sector in South Africa with two new investments, Elisângela Mendonça reports for sister publication Private Equity News in London. The firm has acquired a controlling stake in fiber-optic broadband provider Octotel, in a deal with an enterprise value of 2.3 billion rand, or roughly $140 million. Founded in 2016, the company’s fiber network has passed more than 175,000 premises to provide connectivity in homes and businesses across the Western Cape region.

Private-equity investment firm Chunara Group of Companies is backing the expansion of Now Optics’s My Eyelab retail stores in Oklahoma City and the Dallas-Fort Worth market. The Atlanta-based firm is partnering with My Eyelab franchisee Brad Rodman to open five My Eyelab locations in Oklahoma City and four in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Now Optics already has 42 My Eyelab franchise stores open and expects to have 200 in operation by year-end, including Stanton Optical shops.

Turkish private-equity firm Mediterra Capital has agreed to acquire a majority stake in in payments sector company Paycore. The Turkey-based company provides software and services for payment systems infrastructure to clients in 35 countries.

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

Private-equity firm Investindustrial in London is backing a special purpose acquisition company that plans to raise $350 million in a U.S. initial public offering of shares, a regulatory filing shows. Investindustrial Acquisition Corp. is led by Roberto Ardagna, the private-equity firm’s team leader for backing companies with high growth potential, and Andrea Cicero, a 14-year veteran with the firm. The middle-market investor has backed such U.K. manufacturers as sports car companies Aston Martin and Morgan Motor Co. as well as high-performance Italian motorcycle maker Ducati.

A blank-check company sponsored by a state-backed private investment firm in Bahrain has filed to raise $200 million through an initial public offering of shares, a regulatory filing shows. Global SPAC Partners Co. is led by Abu Bakar Chowdhury, who is also a managing director and the chief financial officer of Asma Capital Partners in Manama, Bahrain. The firm is backed by government agencies in both that kingdom and Saudi Arabia, the filing shows. Other leaders of the special purpose acquisition company listed in the filing include Bryant Edwards, Stephen Cannon and Long Long and all are described as experienced SPAC managers. The company intends to concentrate its search for an acquisition on businesses operating in Gulf Cooperation Council countries, South Asia and within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission wants investors in special-purpose acquisition companies to know that transactions by the so-called blank-check companies may generate less-thorough due diligence than traditional initial public offerings, Paul Kiernan reports for Dow Jones Newswires. The SEC is looking closely at SPACs to make sure their disclosure is up to snuff, particularly at the stage where the entities make transactions. “In an IPO, you have a road show, you have many buyers or potential buyers kicking the tires of the company over time,” SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said in an interview on CNBC. “There’s less of that in a SPAC transaction. People should understand that.”

CI Capital Partners life-sciences company Maroon Group has agreed to be acquired by strategic buyer Barentz International, a Cinven portfolio company. CI Capital acquired Maroon in 2014, investing alongside management of the Avon, Ohio, maker of specialty chemicals and substances for life-sciences industries. The company has made 11 acquisitions since then and revenue has risen more than 450%. 

European private equity firm Triton Partners has amassed €744 million (equivalent to about $874 million) for its latest debt fund, which has closed to new investors, Elisângela Mendonça reports for sister publication Private Equity News in London. The vehicle, Triton Debt Opportunities II, was launched in 2018 and surpassed its initial €550 million target, making it considerably larger than its predecessor, which collected €500 million in 2014.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s third-quarter profit nearly doubled, the latest confirmation that, even in a pandemic and a recession, Wall Street can still make money, Liz Hoffman writes for The Wall Street Journal. Goldman reported a quarterly profit of $3.62 billion, or $9.68 a share, on revenue of $10.78 billion. The bank’s return on equity, a measure of how profitably it uses shareholders’ money, was its highest since 2010. One of its long-term strategies, to raise $100 billion in new private-equity funds by 2025, is likely to be undisturbed by a recession -- and may even be aided by it.

Charges from private-equity owned helicopter air-ambulance services averaged more than seven times what Medicare would pay for such services in 2017, leading to dunned consumers and surprise bills, a report from the Brookings Institution in Washington says. Air-ambulance services owned by two private-equity firms account for almost two-thirds of the Medicare market for such transport, and had a standardized average charge of $48,250 per helicopter flight, the study says, comparing the amount to the $28,800 cost of a flight provided by a service that wasn’t owned by a private-equity firm or a publicly traded company.

Ascena Retail Group Inc., the parent company of Ann Taylor and Lane Bryant, got a $35 million offer to buy tween chain Justice out of bankruptcy and turn it into a primarily online brand, Aisha Al-Muslim reports for WSJ Pro Bankruptcy. The company has reached a deal for Premier Brands Justice LLC, an acquisition vehicle of apparel maker and distributor IHL Group, to serve as the lead bidder, or stalking horse, for the sale of the intellectual property, e-commerce business and other assets of the Justice brand. New York-based IHL, a division of USA Apparel Group Inc., has a portfolio of licensed brands including Aéropostale, BCBG, Rachel Roy and Daisy Fuentes.

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

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

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