Good morning. To those of you coping with—or enjoying—the copious snowfall blanketing much of the Northeast yesterday, chin up! Spring is just a month away. Fresh snow always enchants me, until I have to dig out. I settled for enchantment yesterday. The digging starts today.

As for today's report, our Luis Garcia writes about the rush to come up with benchmarks to gauge the performance of private-credit investments. The latest entrant comes from Lincoln International and S&P Dow Jones indices, unveiled on the heels of market upheaval spurred by a Blue Owl BDC.

Next, our Isaac Taylor has news of a $300 million financing deal that puts Barings behind farm lender Homestead Capital. Barings says the arrangement could grow into the billions.

We have those and many more deals, including exits, as well as other news summarized and linked for you below, so please slide on down... 

Financial-services providers are rushing to create private-credit benchmarks that can help investors better evaluate deal performance—and perhaps alleviate rising concerns about the health of the burgeoning direct-lending market, WSJ Pro's Luis Garcia writes. Investment bank Lincoln International and market-metrics developer S&P Dow Jones Indices on Monday unveiled benchmarks jointly created to track the performance of direct-lending deals in the U.S. and Europe. Several other firms have introduced their own private-credit indexes during the past few months, including Nasdaq, wealth adviser Heron Finance and research provider Morningstar. The rapid expansion of direct lending by private asset managers has stressed the need for market-specific benchmarks that mirror the role of bond and stock indexes in public markets—helping both fund managers and investors compare performance with the broader market while signaling its direction.

Asset-manager Barings is providing $300 million in financing to farm investor Homestead Capital, taking a step to deepen its asset-based lending strategy in agricultural markets, WSJ Pro's Isaac Taylor reports. “We are starting with $300 million, but we believe the opportunity set could enable us to grow the program into the billions rather quickly,” said Burak Cetin, managing director for the Barings asset-based finance team in Charlotte, N.C. The forward-flow loan deal is expected to expand Homestead’s lending capacity while opening the farm credit market to Barings.

Blackstone has struck a deal to help healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson finance the development of its bleximenib drug candidate for the blood cancer acute myeloid leukemia, or AML, Colin Kellaher reports for Dow Jones Newswires. The firm and J&J will jointly pay for part of the costs of current and future clinical trials of bleximenib in AML, the most common type of acute leukemia in adults. Blackstone is investing through its life sciences strategy.

Midmarket-focused Kinderhook Industries is taking private home health and hospice services provider Enhabit at a $1.1 billion valuation, offering stockholders $13.80 a share, which represents a roughly 24% premium to Friday's close in New York. The roughly $700 million deal has the backing of Dallas-based Enhabit's board of directors. The company operates from 249 home health and 117 hospice locations across 34 states.

Real assets-focused Affinius Capital is leading a group that has agreed to acquire New York-listed Veris Residential at an implied enterprise value of about $3.4 billion, offering stockholders $19 a share in cash. The deal represents a roughly 13% premium to Friday's $16.77 close. Other participants in the deal include Vista Hill Partners. Jersey City, N.J.-based Veris is a multifamily property-focused real-estate investment trust that owned 17 buildings with 6,581 apartments at the end of September, according to an investor presentation on the REIT's website.

Buyout firm KKR & Co. has reportedly prevailed in the competition to acquire a majority interest in Singapore-based school operator XCL Education Holdings, beating out Warburg Pincus, EQT and Blackstone with a deal that values the business at about $1.3 billion. Several Southeast Asian news outlets said the stake owned by TPG would go to KKR, pending regulatory approvals and citing people familiar with the matter. XCL Education is one of the leading primary and secondary school operators in Southeast Asia, with 20,000 students, The Wall Street Journal has reported. In addition to Singapore, it operates in Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia.

General Atlantic in New York joined a disparate group investing in the holding company of Banco Nacional de México, often referred to as Banamex. The investors are buying roughly $2.5 billion worth of shares CItigroup is selling, representing a 24% interest in the company. Other investors included Blackstone and the Qatar Investment Authority. Citi limited each investor to no more than 4.9% of Banamex shares. The deal represents General Atlantic's biggest growth investment in Mexico to date.

Growth investor L Squared Capital Partners is acquiring building automation systems provider Functional Devices. LSquared is investing in the deal out of L Squared Capital Partners IV, which closed with $840 million in 2023. Apogem Capital and BMO are providing debt for the deal.

Existing investors Hamilton Lane and Delta-v Capital, joined by Braemont Capital, are backing broadband business VFN Holdings with a $500 million growth investment. Boulder, Colo.-based VFN operates as Vero Broadband and Vero Networks and was set up in 2017 to provide internet access to communities that lacked online connections or were underserved, according to its website. The new investment is expected to help the company extend its fibre-optic networks

Hillhouse Investment Management is joining Carlyle Group and other backers of engineering services company Quest Global, making a minority investment in the Singapore-based business, according to multiple local reports citing a joint statement from the firm and the company.

Vistria Group has acquired Lumen Holdings, a Dallas-based technology-enabled managing general agent. Lumen underwrites commercial property, builders' risk, commercial general liability, personal auto, homeowners and umbrella across more than 30 states.

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

Turning Rock Partners has exited a majority stake in AmeriQual Group Holdings through a growth recapitalization. Turning Rock initially backed the Evansville, Ill.-based food manufacturer back in 2021 alongside family-owned company Harlan Bakeries.

Multistrategy firm TZP Group has exited its stake in email data and intelligence company AtData through the company’s sale to Experian. TZP’s investment in AtData dates back to 2018 when the firm made a strategic investment in Fresh Address, a company that in 2021 merged with TowerData with support from TZP to form AtData.

Flagship Pioneering-backed clinical-stage generative biology company Generate Biomedicines registered to sell 25 million shares estimated to price from $15 to $17 each, a regulatory filing shows. The Somerville, Mass.-based company works with artificial-intelligence technology to identify and develop drug candidates. Flagship, the firm that started Covid-19 vaccines producer Moderna, holds about 49% of the company's equity.

Greenhawk-backed software business SpotHero is being acquired by strategic buyer Uber, bringing parking reservations onto the ride-hailing platform, Kelly Cloonan reports for The Wall Street Journal. Raleigh, N.C.-based Greenhawk has backed the business since 2024, according to research provider PitchBook. Other investors in the Chicago-based company have included Focus Opportunity Fund and Feldsmith Capital, PitchBook indicates.

Wafra-managed Capital Constellation, which invests in emerging fund managers, is backing Gallatin Point Capital, a specialist in structured investments. The Greenwich, Conn.-based firm manages roughly $6 billion. Capital Constellation is providing balance-sheet capital as well as commitments to its funds.

Commercial property specialist Acore Capital has wrapped up a managed commercial real-estate collateralized loan obligation, Acore 2026-FL1, with $1.1 billion. The CLO's initial asset pool includes 22 secured loans tied to multifamily and industrial holdings.

Branded products-focused CAVU Consumer Partners has promoted Jared Jacobs to managing partner. He joined in 2017 and now serves beside co-founders Brett Thomas and Rohan Oza, who are also managing partners.

The European credit arm of H.I.G. Capital, ​​H.I.G. WhiteHorse Europe has added Andy Armah-Kwantreng as a managing director and Marimba Odundo-Mendez as a principal. Both are based in London to lead the firm's U.K. direct lending operations.

​​Shares of U.S.-listed private-equity firms fell across the board Monday, with some such as Blue Owl Capital adding to significant year-to-date declines. The losses came following a steep selloff among European private-equity firms Monday as fears around the strength of their underlying holdings intensified, reported Joe Stonor for Dow Jones Newswires. TPG led year-to-date losers with its shares down over 33%, while StepStone Group ended Monday down over 31% this year, and Blue Owl is off about 30%. Among the biggest U.S. firms, Ares Management has fallen over 29% this year so far, while Blackstone and KKR & Co. are both down over 27%. By contrast, Carlyle Group has lost over 16% while Apollo Global Management is down over 22%.

The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System posted a 6% investment return for last year while net assets rose almost 5.1% to 145.2 billion Canadian dollars, or $106.13 billion, at the end of December. The results trailed the 10-year return of 7.1%, the pension also known as OMERS reported. Its private-equity assets—which represented 18% of its assets at year-end—produced a 2.5% net loss for 2025, while public equities turned in a gain of over 12%.

A measure of credit defaults rose in January, with the number of default events at 89 for the trailing 12 months, according to Fitch Ratings. The analytics firm recorded 11 default events this month, almost twice the monthly average during 2025.

Global exit deals surged 47% to $717 billion last year, excluding add-ons and blank-check company combinations, according to a report from industry consulting firm Bain & Co. citing Dealogic data. Drivers of the increase included acquisitive strategic buyers and a rising need to provide cash to fund investors, Bain said.

Partners Group in Switzerland plans to open a Kuwait office to expand within the Gulf Cooperation Council region. Once it opens, Partners will have 25 offices worldwide.

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