Good morning! As the U.S. high court's tariff decision took center stage to close out last week, my colleague Chris Cumming brings us one more judicial move—a recent rollback of Biden-era merger guidelines that will make antitrust rules less stringent for buyouts.

Also, two secondary investment firms, including one led by a well-known hedge-fund manager, are jumping in with offers to buy stakes in several semiliquid private-credit BDCs run by Blue Owl Capital, the Journal’s Matt Wirz reports. They are offering to buy at discounts of up to 35% off estimated net asset value.

Now onto the news..

A federal district court in Texas on Feb. 12 struck down the merger guidelines that antitrust authorities issued in 2024, rules that required private-equity firms and other buyers to disclose more about planned acquisitions than ever before, Chris Cumming reports for WSJ Pro. The Federal Trade Commission signaled it would appeal. But if the ruling survives, it will be one more antitrust win for private equity in a year that has already seen several.

Boaz Weinstein’s investment firm Saba Capital and Cox Capital are preparing a tender offer for stakes in three semiliquid private-credit business development companies operated by Blue Owl Capital, the Journal reports. The shot across Blue Owl’s bow pits Weinstein—one of Wall Street’s better known hedge-fund managers who helped take down JPMorgan’s “London Whale”—against two rising stars in the booming private-credit market, Blue Owl co-Chief Executive Officers Doug Ostrover and Marc Lipschultz.

A group of investors led by WaveRise Investments is acquiring a nearly 71% stake in the Indian unit of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis. The stake sale is valued at 14.46 billion rupees, equivalent to $159 million, Dow Jones Newswires’ Kimberley Kao reports, citing a Novartis India regulatory filing. Other firms joining WaveRise in backing the deal include Chrys Capital and Two Infinity Partners.

Blackstone's acquisition of New Mexico electric utility TXNM Energy at an enterprise value of $11.5 billion received Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval Friday, clearing the way for the $61.25 a share cash offer. The buyout struck last May also called for Blackstone to invest at least $400 million in the Albuquerque, N.M., company before the take-private deal closes. TXNM provides electricity to about 800,000 homes and businesses in New Mexico and Texas. Blackstone is investing through its infrastructure partners strategy.

Apollo Global Management is investing $1 billion in subordinated hybrid notes issued by Aldar Properties, an investment manager and real estate developer based in the United Arab Emirates. The deal represents Apollo’s fifth transaction with Aldar and brings the total capital Apollo has committed to the firm to $2.9 billion. Apollo is backing the deal out of its high grade capital solutions business.

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

Theseus Capital Partners-backed autonomous drone combat software developer Swarmer has registered to sell 3 million shares in an initial public offering at an anticipated price of $4 to $6 each, a securities filing indicates. Originally a Ukrainian startup, the Austin, Texas-based company, whose chairman is Erik Prince, the founder of former private military contractor Blackwater, develops programs and other technology used in operating military drones and providing them with autonomous capabilities. Swarmer systems have been used in over 100,000 combat missions in Ukraine since 2024, according to the filing. Theseus, run by Broadband Capital Partners Managing Partner Philip Wagenheim in New York, holds a roughly 22% stake in the company's equity, the filing shows.

Eurazeo's sale of a stake in Paris fragrance brand Ex Nihilo to fellow private-equity firm L Catterton generated a 2.7 times gross cash-on-cash return on Eurazeo’s initial investment in 2024. The exit deal was announced previously.

Franklin Park Associates is seeking $250 million for its latest venture capital fund of funds, Franklin Park Venture Capital Fund XVI, according to a regulatory filing.

Dallas-based BBK Capital has closed BBK Ventures Fund I with a total of $262.5 million. The total capital includes up to $175 million of leverage from the Small Business Administration and $87.5 million of private commitments. The fund is structured as a Small Business Investment Company Critical Technologies, SBICCT, and will provide debt and equity to lower midmarket companies across critical technology areas including  aerospace & defense, advanced manufacturing, industrial technology and supply-chain ecosystems. The fund can also make limited partner commitments to other private equity and private credit funds investing across similar strategies within critical technologies.

As some asset managers seek to reassure investors about the resilience of their portfolios, executives at KKR & Co. are going a step further by putting their own money on the line. Co-CEOs Joseph Bae and Scott Nuttall purchased a combined $25.6 million worth of KKR shares this week, sister publication Barron’s reports, citing regulatory filings. Independent KKR directors Matt Cohler and Timothy Barakett joined them, snapping up shares worth $4.5 million on Tuesday and $5.2 million last week, respectively.

The White House is ratcheting up pressure on Congress to enact President Trump’s proposed ban on investors buying homes, laying out for the first time what sort of investment firms he plans to target, Rebecca Picciotto reports for the Journal. In a memo sent Thursday to congressional committee leaders, the White House proposed banning investors with more than 100 single-family homes from buying any more, according to a copy viewed by the Journal.

The blast radius of the Epstein files has toppled C-suite executives, shamed financiers and led to the arrest of a former British royal. Now, school picture day is in the crossfire, Hanna Krueger writes for the Journal. A social media-led boycott has homed in on Lifetouch, the photography company hired by thousands of U.S. schools each year to take portraits of students. Online sleuths poring over government files have drawn a tenuous connection between the 90-year-old company and Leon Black, the co-founder and former chief executive of its private-equity owner, Apollo Global Management. The backlash has prompted school districts across the country to cancel their contracts with Lifetouch.

Lincoln International is offering the S&P Lincoln Senior Debt Index Series in collaboration with S&P Dow Jones Indices, according to an emailed news release. The new private-credit benchmark indexes include the U.S. S&P Lincoln Senior Debt Index and Europe S&P Lincoln Senior Debt Index and will be periodically updated to provide a way to gauge the performance of investments in private credit vehicles and assess their risks.

Partners Group in Switzerland on Friday laid out some details concerning its investments in the software sector and its overall strategy to counter investor concerns about potential effects of market disruptions driven by advances in artificial intelligence. The proportion of the firm's assets in the software sector represent less than half the industry average while it has increasingly focused on the expanding demand for AI infrastructure, Partners Group said. The early proponent of attracting individual investor capital also said that just three of its more than 30 evergreen funds follow credit strategies and account for less than 3% of its $185 billion in assets. Partners shares rose 1.9% Friday in Zurich.

Private-equity firms scored slightly less than 300 infrastructure deals across North America in the fourth quarter, 41% less than in the same period of 2024, according to Preqin. While most deals last quarter involved developers of renewable-power plants as well as projects that use other clean-energy technologies, the largest transactions targeted data-center operators, the research provider says. Despite continuous interest in the data-center sector, infrastructure fund managers increasingly weigh the various risks that often come with backing new projects, Preqin adds. "Access to power, water availability, equipment supply, permitting and valuation discipline have become increasingly central to investment decision-making."

Canadian listed private markets firm Onex posted net income of $181 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, or $2.64 a share, compared with a loss of $2 million, or 2 cents a share, in the comparable quarter a year earlier, Adriano Marchese writes for Dow Jones Newswires. At the end of the quarter, the company had $8.7 billion of investing capital, or $124.70 per share, returning 3% in the fourth quarter. The firm’s private-equity strategy Onex Partners announced $7.7 billion in gross distributions to its limited partners in 2025, including $4.3 billion to its co-investors.

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