Good morning! I hope you enjoyed Valentine's weekend, whether it was a romantic one or not. We start the shorter week with a timely story by my colleague Isaac Taylor about private-markets firms’ efforts, including offering top talent big signing bonuses, to expand their teams focused on the booming secondary market.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles County sued American Industrial Partners and its one-time portfolio company Rev Group, accusing them of conspiring to monopolize the market for firetrucks, my other colleague Chris Cumming writes.

Finally, my Journal colleague Heather Gillers reports that Ivy League schools that have long invested in alternative assets are showing signs of pulling back from the asset class.

Now onto the news...

Private-markets firms such as Apollo Global Management and Ares Management are laying out some serious cash to hire new talent focused on secondaries as the strategy gains traction among institutional and wealth investors, WSJ Pro’s Isaac Taylor reports. Senior hires can fetch signing bonuses of over $1 million from asset managers anxious to build out both their private-equity and credit secondary capabilities and keep up with investor demand. Firms are also on the hunt for junior staffers. For example, Ares is searching for an associate to focus on investments in general-partner stakes, offering a salary of $130,000 to $175,000 for the junior role.

Los Angeles County accused American Industrial Partners of conspiring to monopolize the market for firetrucks, alleging the private-equity firm’s tactics led to shortages and high prices, Chris Cumming writes for  WSJ Pro. The county on Thursday brought the antitrust lawsuit against the firm and Rev Group, a firetruck manufacturer AIP formed two decades ago, as well as Pierce Manufacturing and its parent company, Oshkosh Corp., which aren’t affiliated with private equity. The defendants “have reaped extraordinary profits on the backs of fire departments, taxpayers, cities, and counties” by creating “highly concentrated and oligopolistic markets that they control,” letting them raise prices and reduce supply, county prosecutors alleged. In response, AIP said it “disagrees with the allegations." The companies didn't respond to requests for comments.

Private equity is on academic probation, Heather Gillers writes for the Journal. Princeton University is lowering expectations for its endowment’s returns because its private-capital investments have disappointed. Yale trimmed its portfolio of leveraged buyouts for the first time in a decade. Harvard says cashing out of some private-market investments early is now part of a long-term strategy. The moves  by the private-equity stalwarts come as the market for private-company investments has turned more crowded, and returns now struggle to match broader stock-market benchmarks such as the S&P 500.

Antin Infrastructure Partners is in exclusive talks to acquire family-owned Caravelle's holiday club operator Belambra. The French business generated revenue of about €254 million, or about $301.5 million, last year. Paris-based Antin would invest in Belambra through its €2.2 billion Mid Cap Fund I in a deal expected to close by June.

Blackstone led a growth commitment of up to $600 million for artificial intelligence accelerator Neysa, which in turn expects to borrow a similar amount to drive growth in the Indian AI company. Neysa expects to deploy over 20,000 graphic processing units, the primary logic circuits used in developing AI engines, in its home country with the funding.

German buyout firm Mutares in Munich is carving out the specialty flooring operations of Hamberger Industriewerke. The acquired business supplies parquet and other hard floor coverings under the Haro brand from two plants and sells in over 70 countries, with more than 700 employees and generating revenue of about €150 million, or $178 million.

Technology-focused TA Associates is backing Volue, joining others including Advent International as investors in the company, which focuses on power trading and generation, electric grid optimization and energy market intelligence. The investment from Boston-based TA is expected to help the Oslo business expand.

The European Commission has approved the acquisition of packaging company Sealed Air by funds managed by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice in New York. The regulator said the transaction would not raise competition concerns, given the companies' limited market positions.

Distressed-assets specialist Black Diamond Capital Management has acquired upstate New York shopping mall Palisades Center with plans to further invest in the 2.3-million-square-foot retail destination in West Nyack.

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

Prysm Capital-backed Clear Street Group cut the expected price range for its planned initial public offering of shares to $26 to $28 each last week from $40 to $46 on Feb. 4, then reportedly postponed the deal to an undetermined date, Juan Carlos Arancibia reported for sister publication Investor's Business Daily in Los Angeles. Prysm holds over 66% of the company's equity and has backed the investor services provider since at least 2022. Both Bloomberg News and Reuters said the IPO plans were shelved because of recent weakness in software shares.

Arsenal Capital Partners has sold primary medical-care provider MaxHealth in Florida to strategic buyer Humana's CenterWall unit. MaxHealth operates 54 primary-care clinics and over two-dozen other clinics around the state serving over 120,000 patients. Arsenal first backed the business in 2020, according to the firm's website.

Mutares in Munich has separated out and sold off the WIJ Special Media unit of portfolio company Prénatal Netherlands to specialty media and marketing company N2Com. Mutares acquired retailer Prénatal in 2023, when it generated revenue of about €100 million, or about $118.7 million.

Capza, the fund manager backed by banking giant BNP Paribas, has held a first close for its Capza Private Debt 7 fund with commitments of almost €1.4 billion, or $1.66 billion. The Paris firm also called Atalante has already invested about €400 million from the vehicle across five midmarket deals.

Private-equity firm Verdane in Oslo is in talks to raise a multi-asset continuation fund valued at roughly €600m in the latest sign of booming appetite for the secondaries market and is in talks with Lazard advisers on the deal to extend its hold on three companies, sister publication Private Equity News reports. Peer firm Vitruvian is also in talks to raise a separate continuation vehicle to extend its hold on one of the companies, auto parking tech business EasyPark, which it co-owns with Verdane.

Cybersecurity venture firm Evolution Equity Partners is seeking $1.2 billion for Equity Technology Fund IV, according to a regulatory filing. The new fund’s offering amount is slightly higher than the $1.1 billion that it raised for the fund’s predecessor back in 2024.

Specialist asset manager Walton Group of Cos. is setting up a strategy focused on property appreciation through the development of raw land and aims to raise up to $500 million for its American Builder Growth and Income Fund to support the effort. Operating as Walton Global, the Scottsdale, Ariz., firm expects to receive commitments to the new fund from family offices and other asset managers, among others.

NatWest Group in London is betting on its expansion in wealth management to attract new customers and diversify earnings to offset falling interest rates, Elena Vardon reports for the Journal. NatWest earlier this week said it would buy wealth manager Evelyn Partners for £2.7 billion, or $3.68 billion, its first major acquisition since the U.K. government fully exited its stake in the bank last year.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board ended last year with assets totaling 780.7 billion Canadian dollars, or about $573.4 billion, little changed from the year-ago total of C$777.5 billion. The investment manager said it had a net return of 0.5% in the just-ended quarter while its 10-year return stood at 8.4%.

The Justice Department’s top antitrust official, Gail Slater, is leaving her job, capping a rocky year in which she clashed with senior officials who at times favored more lenient oversight of mergers, Dave Michaels reports for The Wall Street Journal. Slater’s departure, which followed weeks of being overruled on matters large and small, opens a leadership vacuum at the antitrust division amid a host of major cases.

The European Commission has approved Sagard's acquisition of the midmarket-focused private-equity operations of Unigestion in Geneva, which is expected to create a single midmarket PE group with assets of over $23 billion.

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