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Antares Capital has defied the storm clouds over private credit by raising an $8.5 billion war chest for its latest senior loan fund, Isaac Taylor reports. 

Meanwhile, S2G Investments, which traces its roots to the family office of Lukas Walton, has raised its first growth-equity fund as an independent firm, Luis Garcia reports. 

And Mercury Capital Advisors, a placement agent that filed for bankruptcy in 2024, has prevailed over accusations by firm co-founder Alan Pardee that it discriminated and retaliated against him, I report.

Now onto the news...

Antares Capital has defied the doldrums hitting the private credit industry by amassing a total of $8.5 billion for its third senior loan fund strategy, exceeding an initial target of $6 billion, Isaac Taylor reports for WSJ Pro. The fund, Antares Senior Loan Fund III, raised $4.5 billion in investor commitments including $220 million in employee commitments. The remaining capital came from leverage. Several investors said in due-diligence documents that Antares’ long record of managing portfolios through multiple market cycles helped the fund earn their support.

Chicago’s S2G Investments has closed its first growth fund as a stand-alone firm at $1 billion, Luis Garcia reports for Pro. The firm, which until two years ago was a unit of the family office for the grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton, is investing the fund to back companies that help make energy and agriculture supply chains more resilient and has so far backed 10 businesses through the vehicle.

Mercury Capital Advisors has prevailed over a former executive’s accusations of discrimination and retaliation in a lawsuit that preceded the firm’s bankruptcy, Chris Cumming reports for Pro.  A jury in the Supreme Court of New York ruled last week that Mercury co-founder Alan Pardee failed to prove his claims that he was forced out of the firm because of his race and his opposition to what he characterized as a discriminatory environment. Pardee’s lawsuit, filed in 2021, initially sought at least $6.6 million from the company, which filed for bankruptcy in 2024. Pardee’s breach-of-contract charges are still under review by a bankruptcy court.

Join us on May 14 at 11 a.m. for a discussion that will bring together Bureau Chiefs and Senior Editors of the CFO Journal, WSJ Pro Private Equity, Financial News and Private Equity News to unpack the biggest financial developments shaping corporate decision-making in a constantly changing economic landscape. Laura Kreutzer, Shruti Tripathi Chopra and Walden Siew will tackle issues ranging from policy shifts to emerging trends in private equity, credit and retail and what to expect in the second half of 2026. Register here for this free webinar.

Apollo Global Management has agreed to strike deals for two different live-events businesses as part of a plan to create a platform for in-person gatherings, the Journal writes. The firm said Monday it was set to buy publicly traded Emerald Holding and privately held Questex, with plans to combine the two companies. Both sales represent exits for other private-equity firms. MidOcean Partners has backed Questex since 2018, while Canadian firm Onex Partners has owned more than 90% of the outstanding shares of Emerald. Under the terms of the deal with Emerald, shareholders are expected to receive $5.03 in cash per share, valuing the company at roughly $1 billion. Emerald stock closed Friday at $4.57. The price of the all-cash deal for Questex isn’t being disclosed but is considerably smaller than the Emerald transaction, according to people familiar with the matter.

Private markets firm Blackstone and energy company Halliburton have agreed to back a $1 billion investment in data center energy company Voltagrid. The investment consists of $775 million of primary capital and a $225 million secondary purchase from existing investors. Voltagrid also announced that in addition to the investment, the company has agreed to acquire one of its suppliers, Propell Energy Technology Ltd. and its affiliates.

Private investment firm Stonepeak has agreed to acquire the transportation finance and vendor finance businesses of publicly-traded BMO Financial Group. The assets Stonepeak will acquire represent loans of around 14.5 billion Canadian dollars, or roughly $10.4 billion, as at March 31, 2026. BMO will reinvest a portion of the sale proceeds into a nearly 20% stake in the newly recapitalized company.

European midmarket firm AnaCap has launched Titan, a new business that it will use to consolidate the accounting and professional services sectors in Italy. The newly-formed platform has also announced its first deal with a majority stake in Cattaneo Dall’Olio Rho Tax & Legal Group, a Bergamo, Italy-based company that offers professional services that include accounting, tax advisory, corporate services and strategic advisory.

Index Ventures has led a $275 million investment in Cowboy Space Corporation that values the San Carlos, Calif.-based space infrastructure company at $2 billion. Other investors in the transaction include new investors IVP, Blossom Capital and SAIC, as well as existing backers Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Construct Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, Interlagos and Baiju Bhatt.

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

Sony Group has agreed to acquire the full catalog of Blackstone-backed Recognition Music Group, a collection of more than 45,000 pop songs from artists ranging from Rihanna to Fleetwood Mac, the Journal reports. The deal, made through Sony’s venture with Singapore’s sovereign-wealth fund GIC, will give Sony Music Publishing ownership of works performed by Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Journey, Red Hot Chili Peppers and others. Blackstone began building its presence in music rights in 2021 when it committed $1 billion to a new fund with Hipgnosis Song Management to buy large catalogs. The firm later backed Hipgnosis’s 2024 takeover of the London-listed Hipgnosis Songs Fund, now renamed Recognition Music Group.

Dallas-based Paceline Equity Partners has agreed to sell R.E.L.A.M., a lessor of equipment used to maintain railroad infrastructure. Paceline, which did not disclose the name of the buyer, acquired R.E.L.A.M. in 2020 and combined it with its portfolio company 1435 Rail, WSJ Pro reported at the time.

LDC, a private investment firm that is part of Lloyd’s Banking Group, is exiting its stake in Building Cost Information Service, or BCIS, as part of the construction-cost data company’s stake sale to London-based private investment firm Bowmark Capital. LDC initially invested in BCIS back in 2022.

Coller Capital has served as lead investor in a €635 million, or roughly $748 million, continuation vehicle that will allow European growth investor Verdane to recapitalize several portfolio companies. The companies include digital parking payments company Arrive Group, which is the largest asset in the continuation fund. Verdane’s investment in Arrive dates back to 2012, when the firm acquired Easy Park, a Nordic mobile parking payments company that merged with Flowbird in 2025 to form Arrive Group. Other assets to be included in the continuation vehicle include Talentech and Pet Media Group.

Michael O’Brien has joined midmarket firm Calera Capital as managing director and head of business development for the firm. O’Brien previously worked at Valspring Capital, where he was a managing director and head of business development.

OpenAI has launched The OpenAI Deployment Company in partnership with a group of investors that include private markets firms TPG, Advent International, Bain Capital and Brookfield Asset Management as co-lead founding partners. The platform will focus on helping enterprises build and scale AI applications across their organizations and is launching with more than $4 billion of initial investment. Other firms backing the partnership as founding partners include B Capital, BBVA, Emergence Capital, Goanna Capital, Goldman Sachs, SoftBank Corp., Warburg Pincus and Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe. Brookfield said it has agreed to invest $500 million in the partnership, an investment led by the firm’s listed private-equity business Brookfield Business Corporation. The partnership has also garnered support from consulting firms Bain & Co., Capgemini and McKinsey & Co.

Apollo Global Management has been holding talks to sell MidCap Financial Investment Corp., its publicly listed business-development company, a type of private-credit fund, the Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter. The talks are ongoing and there is no guarantee they will result in a deal for the fund, known as MFIC, and its investments, which Apollo values at roughly $3 billion, the people cautioned.

KKR’s largest private-credit fund held by individual investors took a $560 million loss in the first quarter when a growing number of loans tipped into default, according to the Journal. The write-down—equivalent to about 10% of the fund’s net asset value—is one of the biggest indicators so far of underlying problems in a large private-credit fund. Defaults in the $12.3 billion fund—a business-development company called FS KKR Capital,  jumped to 8.1% in the first quarter from 5.5% in December, KKR said.

Boston-based Riverside Partners has rebranded as RS2 Healthcare Partners to reflect the firm’s honing of its strategic focus exclusively on healthcare. Craig Stern, a general partner at the firm who has focused on healthcare deals, will join David Belluck as co-managing partner at the newly renamed firm.  At the same time, the firm has announced that it has formed a continuation vehicle to recapitalize portfolio company Loftware with the secondary strategy of Accel-KKR serving as the vehicle’s lead investor.

Sovereign wealth investor Qatar Investment Authority has expanded its relationship with General Atlantic through a $500 million commitment to the private-equity firm’s growth-equity strategies. As part of the partnership, the two organizations will also collaborate on research and market insights, while also supporting portfolio companies seeking access to Middle Eastern markets and provide professional development opportunities for QIA employees.

Private-credit firms delivered eye-popping returns to investors in recent years. That hot streak is over. The latest earnings results across the industry show returns that appear to be entering a more modest chapter, just as investors have grown worried about other aspects of private-credit funds that lend to riskier companies, the Journal reports.

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