Welcome back. Private-equity executives, fresh out of earnings season, are singing the praises for 2026. Apollo president Jim Zelter put it in golfing terms, saying Wednesday that there’s a lot to like in the fairway: lower regulatory barriers, a massive capital expenditure cycle amid an AI build and an industrial renaissance. Still, he said at an industry event, “The problem is we're playing in the U.S. Open. So, the fairway is very narrow and the rough is very severe.”

Meanwhile, industry consolidation may hit the brakes as private equity and credit firms’ size and financial heft have raised the bar for adding new operations, Luis Garcia writes in today's Take column.

Next, two scoops. First, I report that Andreessen Horowitz-backed Talkiatry raised $210 million in a round led by Joseph Edelman's Perceptive Advisors. Next, Chris Cumming writes that holding company Garden City Equity has collected $255 million from some big-name investors, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam as well as former NFL quarterbacks Drew Brees and Tim Tebow.

Finally, the Journal delved into the latest trove of Jeffrey Epstein documents to knit together a picture of former Apollo CEO Leon Black's finances as of over a decade ago. It offers a detailed look at how a multi-billionaire strategizes when it comes to personal finances.

We have these stories and more, so please read on…

Healthcare investor Perceptive Advisors is leading a $210 million equity and debt investment in Talkiatry to support the telepsychiatry company’s expanded offerings and technology buildout, Maria Armental reports for WSJ Pro. Earlier investors Andreessen Horowitz, Blisce/, and Left Lane Capital also participated in the equity investment along with new investor Sofina, a Belgian publicly traded investment company. Banc of California provided the debt financing.

Garden City Equity, a holding company that buys founder- and family-owned U.S. businesses, has closed a new funding round with the backing of well-known figures from the worlds of business, sports and music, Chris Cumming reports for WSJ Pro. The Charlotte, N.C.-based company reached its upper fundraising limit of $255 million and raised the money from about 200 shareholders, without the participation of institutional investors, said Chief Executive Michael Arrieta. The firm’s first fundraising campaign gathered about $50 million in 2020. Backers of the latest effort include former governors Jeb Bush of Florida and Bill Haslam of Tennessee as well as ex-NFL quarterbacks Drew Brees and Tim Tebow.

Former Apollo Global Management Chief Executive Officer Leon Black's personal finances are laid out in the Justice Department’s recent releases of Jeffrey Epstein documents, down to the exact balances in each of his 69 bank accounts and the details of a $484 million loan backed by his extensive art collection, the Journal reports. Black socialized with Epstein and turned to him for tax- and estate-planning advice. The documents date to 2014 and 2015, so Black’s finances are different today. But the disclosures offer an exceptionally granular look at the strategies used by many of the ultrarich to build wealth and minimize their taxes.

Large, publicly traded private-equity and credit firms spent tens of billions of dollars over the past few years buying smaller peers as the asset-management industry consolidated. Luis Garcia writes that those acquirers may now hit the brakes on such deals, as their larger size and financial heft have raised the bar for new additions.

The Qatar Investment Authority and B Capital joined other participants in a $520 million growth investment in robotics startup Apptronik. Strategic investors such as automaker Mercedes-Benz and farm equipment maker John Deere also joined the transaction. The company spun out of the University of Texas at Austin's robotics lab and now has about 300 employees.

Investindustrial has completed the acquisition of TreeHouse Foods through a $22.50-a-share deal that valued the company at more than $2.9 billion. Shareholders are also entitled to certain potential net proceeds from litigation relating to part of TreeHouse Foods’ coffee business.

Bessemer Venture Partners led a $450 million growth investment in commercial fusion energy developer Inertia Enterprises. Others that participated in the round included Modern Capital and data center operator Alphabet's Google Ventures arm. The company is building on physics from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and will use the milestone-based capital infusions to develop fuel and reactor components.

Longevity-focused Age1 led a $100 million growth investment in clinical-stage animal health company Loyal, joined by others including Baillie Gifford. Led by co-founders Laura Deming and Alex Colville, Age1 is the next iteration of Deming's Longevity Fund. Loyal is developing drugs designed to extend the lifespan of dogs.

Healthcare investor MVM Partners led a €62.5 million, or $74.2 million, growth investment in Neurent Medical, joined by Sofinnova Partners and existing backers including EQT AB. The Galway, Ireland-based company has developed a treatment for chronic rhinitis that uses impedance-controlled radiofrequency technology.

Ares Management is backing entertainment company Propagate Content with a $50 million investment to help the business extend its reach into the digital creator community, Joe Flint reports for the Journal. The deal values Propagate at more than $200 million, according to people familiar with the business. The company produces television shows such as "Best Medicine" as well as streaming series "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives."

Insight Partners led a $50 million growth investment in security app developer GitGuardian, joined by Quadrille Capital as well as existing backers including Eurazeo and Balderton Capital. The company specializes in protecting non-human identities occurring in the agentic artificial intelligence universe.

Armira Growth and and Invest AG participated in a roughly €30 million, or $35.6 million, investment in electric vehicle battery diagnostics company Aviloo, acquiring all the interests held by the European Innovation Council Fund, an early backer of the Austrian business. The two firms joined Raiffeisen KMU Invest as the company's key investors.

Halo Partners has acquired specialty equipment and services provider W.O. Grubb from the estate of the founding family through a management buyout. The Richmond, Va., company operates lift services, including rigging and logistics, from 13 locations in the mid-Atlantic region

Highland Rim Capital in Nashville, Tenn. has acquired Xybix, which designs and manufactures ergonomic workstations and control room furniture for public safety agencies, healthcare providers, utilities, transportation operators, and enterprise customers.

Coral Tree Partners in Los Angeles is backing Plein Air, a marketing, technology and data consultant for the restaurant and retail industries.

Private-equity firm CQL Capital is backing concrete batch supplier Erie Strayer with a strategic investment, joined by co-investor Star Mountain Capital. The family-run business is based in Erie, Pa.

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

Court Square Capital-backed construction materials distributor Kodiak Building Partners is being acquired by strategic buyer QXO for about $2.25 billion in cash and stock, Rob Curran reports for the Journal. Court Square has backed the Englewood, Colo., company since 2017 and would receive $2 billion in cash and around 13.2 million shares with QXO retaining the right to repurchase them for $40 each. Kodiak generated about $2.4 billion in sales last year, with about 40% of that derived from Texas and Florida.

Blue Owl Capital has wrapped up a new fund to invest in secondaries through general partner-led deals with more than $3 billion in commitments. The Blue Owl Strategic Equity Partners fund is the New York firm's first to pursue GP-led continuation deals. The WSJ Pro LP Commitments database shows investors in the vehicle included the New York State Common Retirement Fund, which kicked in $300 million, and the Kern County Employees' Retirement Association in Bakersfield, Calif., with a $25 million pledge. Blue Owl said individual investors also backed the vehicle, which the $307 billion firm had been raising since at least 2023.

Insurer Prudential Financial's Montana Capital Partners in Switzerland has closed on $1.4 billion for its MCP Opportunity Secondary Program VI, a fund targeting private equity secondaries deals including those led by general partners of funds as well as fund investors, or limited partners. The strategy includes transactions in North America and Western Europe, according to the Swiss firm.

Sun Capital Partners has formed its first continuation fund to recapitalize U.K.-based personal injury specialist law firm Fletchers Solicitors. A firm spokesman declined to disclose the continuation fund’s secondary investors. Sun Capital initially backed Fletchers in 2021 and has rolled its own stake in the company into the new CV along with an additional $10 million pledge from the firm’s secondary fund. Sun Capital has also agreed to sell portfolio company Anderson Global into a separate single asset continuation fund that the firm expects to close in the second or third quarter.

Asset manager ABS Global Investments in Stamford, Conn., has set up an interval fund with a strategy of investing in growth-stage private companies and those that are near an initial public offering of shares. The fund allows daily investments and quarterly liquidity. ABS manages about $11 billion through multiple strategies.

Branford Castle Partners has promoted Marilyn Yang to managing director at the firm. Yang joined the firm in 2018.

Renovus Capital Partners in Wayne, Pa., has hired Niklas Kuhlmann as director of investor relations and capital formation, EMEA, based in Frankfurt and focusing on Europe and Asia. He was most recently with Selinus Capital.

Family office Carlson Private Capital Partners in Minnetonka, Minn., has hired Jared Brown as managing director. He joins from Norwest Equity Partners.

BlackRock bought itself a problem last year along with the acquisition of HPS Investment Partners, a firm founded by alumni of Goldman Sachs that was one of the stars of the private-credit sector, the Journal reports. Days after the deal closed, an HPS analyst noticed billing discrepancies in a business HPS had backed with a $400 million loan and that led to accusations of fraud. The loan was written off and many questions began to be asked, casting doubt on the entire private credit sector.

Meta Platforms’ auditor, Ernst & Young, raised a red flag over the financial engineering Meta used to keep a $27 billion data-center project off its balance sheet but ultimately blessed the accounting treatment, Jonathan Weil reports for the Journal. Meta moved the data-center project, called Hyperion, off its books in October into a new joint venture with Blue Owl Capital. Meta owns 20% of the venture, and Blue Owl holds the rest. Four Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in a Jan. 22 letter asked the Financial Stability Oversight Council to investigate the risks that AI-related debt pose to the financial system, pointing to the Meta-Blue Owl venture as an example of convoluted and opaque arrangements that obscure "the true nature of their balance sheets."

Susquehanna Private Equity Investments-backed BlockFills in Chicago has suspended customer deposits and withdrawals in light of the plunging values of cryptocurrencies, Vicky Ge Huang reports for the Journal. BlockFills is a crypto lending and trading firm for institutional investors.

Wall Street executives have a message for investors: The demise of software businesses from artificial intelligence is greatly exaggerated, Ben Glickman writes for the Journal. Top leaders at major banks and investment firms are seeking to calm anxieties about AI's potential to render software businesses obsolete -- and playing down their own investrments in the sector. "None of us at Apollo think that software is going away. In fact, we actually think software is going to be used a whole lot more. It's just a question -- what're you going to pay for it?" said John Zito, co-president of Apollo Global Management's asset-management arm, in an interview on CNBC Wednesday.

The chief investment officer of the U.K. Pension Protection Fund has played down concerns over private credit, claiming that the fast-growing sector is no less risky than some public markets, David Ricketts reports for sister publication Financial News in London. The fund acts as a lifeboat for British retirement systems and oversees about £31 billion, or roughly $42.3 billion.

Private-markets asset values trailed the S&P 500 during last year's fourth quarter, rising just 1.9% to the benchmark index's 2.3% gain, in terms of enterprise values, according to Lincoln International's Lincoln Private Market Index. Over all of last year, the S&P trounced the LPMI with growth of nearly 16% compared with the LPMI's 9.9.% advance.

Private equity represented about 17% of portfolio allocations among 657 college and university endowments surveyed by the National Association of College and University Business Officers, a trade organization, according to an emailed news release. Endowments with more than $5 billion of assets had a little more than 19% of their dollar-weighted portfolios allocated to private equity, while endowments with $250 million or less in assets had allocations in the single digit percentages, the report showed. 

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

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