Good morning! Data centers became a hot investment play as generative AI took the world by storm a few years ago. Today, our Luis Garcia reports on a plan from Five Point Infrastructure to set up the communications, power sources and cooling water supplies needed to put data centers at sites in the vast Permian Basin that stretches across West Texas into New Mexico. The firm is putting up as much as $1 billion to back the recently formed company, PowerBridge, that will lead the effort. 

Next our Wall Street Journal colleague Anne Tergesen reports on a move by giant 401(k) administrator Empower to give select savers the chance to invest in private-markets funds from asset managers including Apollo and Partners Group.

Finally, our WSJ Pro colleague Alicia McElhaney reports that recent market turmoil is generating distress-investing opportunities, with credit default rates expected to rise. 

We have these and many more news items condensed and linked for you below, so please read on...

Five Point Infrastructure has committed as much as $1 billion to PowerBridge, a recently formed developer of data-center locations in the Permian Basin, as the private-equity firm seeks to attract technology companies to a sparsely populated region best known for producing oil and gas from shale rock, WSJ Pro’s Luis Garcia reports. PowerBridge plans to build locations suitable for the installation of data centers by technology companies and other users, providing them with access to power supplies and broadband communications networks as well as water for cooling, said David Capobianco, Five Point’s chief executive and managing partner.

Apollo Global Management and Partners Group are among seven asset managers that are offering everyday investors a chance to get into private-markets funds through 401(k) retirement plan administrator Empower, Anne Tergesen reports for The Wall Street Journal. Empower, which oversees $1.8 trillion in 401(k)-type plans for 19 million people, is the biggest plan provider yet to offer private-markets funds as 401(k) investments. But it will only offer the option to people with managed accounts.

The market turmoil brought on by tariffs is creating one of the most significant opportunities in recent years for distressed debt investors—but only the largest funds are best positioned to capitalize on it, WSJ Pro’s Alicia McElhaney reports. Moody’s Ratings said tariffs could cause default rates to spike to 8%, up from 5.8% for the 12-month period ended in March. Investors looking to get in on a potential wave of corporate distress, however, will have to adapt to a new landscape shaped by private lenders holding large sums of capital. To influence restructurings, distressed debt investors will need to make larger commitments than they used to.

Entrée Capital led a $110 million investment in quantum-computing software developer Classiq, joined by Norwest Venture Partners, NightDragon, Hamilton Lane as well as others, WSJ Pro’s Yuliya Chernova reports. The transaction valued the business at around $500 million. The company is building what it calls an operating system for quantum computing. It offers a platform that allows developers to design, optimize, analyze and execute quantum algorithms.

Private-equity firm GTCR in Chicago is investing $200 million in preferred equity issued by the healthcare arm of Toronto-listed Telus, a telecommunications and technology company, Robb M. Stewart reports for Dow Jones Newswires. The minority investment is expected to aid Vancouver, British Columbia-based Telus in its acquisition of employee-health-services provider Workplace Options to expand in digital healthcare services. WindRose Health Investors said late Wednesday that it sold Workplace Options to Telus in a transaction valued at about $425 million.

Carlyle Group and SK Capital Partners have altered their buyout offer for Nasdaq-listed gene therapy company Bluebird bio, adding a $5 per share cash option, up from $3 a share in cash plus a contingent value right per share, and giving the Somerville, Mass.-based biotech a market value of about $50 million. But the stockholders who accept the higher upfront price forgo rights to $6.84 a share more in later sales milestone payments. Investors who take the $3 price will also get the contingent value rights. The private-equity firms also warned investors that if the buyout offer is rejected, the company may default on loan agreements with Hercules Capital. The offer deadline has been extended to May 29. The shares leaped around 50% to $4.98 each in early trading Wednesday following the revised bid.

Bain Capital in Boston has backed off a bid to acquire Sydney-listed Insignia Financial, telling the wealth manager that it isn’t able to make a binding offer because of “macro uncertainty caused by the volatility in global capital markets,” according to a securities filing Wednesday. But Insignia said that discussions continue with rival bidder CC Capital Partners. Bain Capital’s bid of 5 Australian dollars a share valued the business at $2.17 billion, David Winning reports for Dow Jones Newswires.

Magnetar Capital in Evanston, Ill., joined the venture investing arm of chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices in backing a $100 million growth investment in data-center developer TensorWave. The Las Vegas-based company is building operations designed to power artificial-intelligence applications using AMD chips, including one cluster with 8,192 graphics processors, and offers cloud-based services.

Australian private-equity firm BGH Capital is proposing to acquire travel agency Webjet for 80 Australian cents a share, or less than the company’s share price in Sydney, according to a securities filing. The company also said that a May 8 proposal to acquire 5% of its shares at A80 cents each also came from BGH. The shares closed at A65 cents each on that date. The company had a market capitalization of about 349.4 million Australian dollars, or roughly $224.6 million, after the close Wednesday.

Silversmith Capital Partners in Boston is backing software company Rentsync with a “significant growth investment.” The Toronto company, legally named Landlord Web Solutions, develops applications used to manage rental properties.

Headline Growth Management and Meritech Capital led a $120 million growth investment in online ordering and restaurant marketing software provider Owner.com. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based business plans to use the fresh capital to help it expand beyond independently owned restaurants to other types of small businesses.

O'Neil Strategic Capital led a $60 million growth investment in shared truckload broker Flock Freight, with participation by Susquehanna Private Equity Investments, GLP Capital Partners and Bracket Capital, among others. The Encinitas, Calif.-based company uses artificial-intelligence technology to help arrange loads for clients.

Strategic Value Partners and One Investment Management, joined by others including Columbia Property Trust, have acquired a multifamily residential project in Jersey City, N.J. The first phase of the Hudson House development has been completed with two more planned for the 829-unit project.

Mandatum Asset Management is backing a €20 million, or around $22.3 million, investment in Finnish golf equipment manufacturer Takomo. The company marks the fourth investment out of Mandatum Asset Management’s Growth Equity II fund.

Family office Webster Capital in Chicago is backing jewelry company Ring Concierge with a growth investment. The company has stores in New York, Houston, Los Angeles and Boca Raton, Fla.

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

Triton Partners is selling German heating, ventilation and air-conditioning product maker FlaktGroup to Korean manufacturer Samsung Electronics for €1.5 billion, equivalent to $1.68 billion, Kwanwoo Jun reports for the Journal. Triton said the deal gives the company, which generates revenue of over €700 million annually, an enterprise value of about €1.8 billion. The firm has backed the business since at least 2016.

General Atlantic-backed Chime Financial has filed to go public, Katherine Hamilton reports for the Journal. The financial technology company, which offers checking and savings accounts through partnerships with banks, said Tuesday it applied to trade on Nasdaq under the symbol CHYM. General Atlantic initially backed the company in 2019, according to the firm’s website.

Family office B-Flexion’s Boston Pharmaceuticals is selling its leading liver disease drug candidate, efimosfermin alfa, to strategic buyer GSK in the U.K. for as much as $2 billion. The Cambridge, Mass.-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company is to receive $1.2 billion upfront and as much as $800 million in payments based on reaching certain milestones. Growth investor B-Flexion manages assets and investments of the Ernesto Bertarelli family. A different Bertarelli-backed firm, Gurnet Point Capital in Cambridge, backed the company when it was founded in 2015 with a $600 million investment, according to a Boston Globe report.

Quantum Capital Group-backed White Rock Energy has agreed to sell oil producing assets in the Williston Basin of Montana and North Dakota to publicly traded TXO Partners for a cash consideration of around $350 million, including $70 million be paid later. The deal was signed in partnership with North Hudson Resource Partners, whose affiliates will get a 30% nonoperated interest in the White Rock assets.

European private-equity firm Eurazeo has closed its sale of Albingia to a consortium of investors led by family-backed investment firm La financière de Blacailloux, or Fiblac, the financial holding company of the Chamoin family. Other investors in the consortium include Krefeld, the family office of the Hermès families, and Canada-based Fairfax Financial Holdings. Eurazeo initially invested around €263 million, or $293.8 million, for 70% of the French insurance company’s share capital back in 2018 through a co-investment alongside Finblac.

Crestline Investors has closed Crestline Direct Lending Fund IV, giving the Fort Worth, Texas, firm about $3.5 billion in investable capital, including anticipated leverage and related vehicles. One investor that disclosed a commitment to the new fund is the Alaska Retirement Management Board, which approved a commitment of up to $100 million in 2023.

Software investor Nexa Equity has closed on more than $390 million for its second private-equity pool, Nexa Equity Fund II, reaching its upper limit in commitments in about six months, according to the San Francisco firm. In March, Nexa in a securities said the fund had collected $393 million. Nexa, which specializes in backing software-as-a-service businesses, now manages more than $1 billion.

Ares Management is moving Tyrone Cooney, partner and head of France and southern Europe for European direct lending, to lead its new Milan office to take advantage of his experience investing in the Italian market.

The estate of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has begun the process of selling the Portland Trail Blazers franchise of the National Basketball Association, according to a statement from the team posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. The sale is being run by media and entertainment investment bank Allen & Co. in New York. But the estate isn’t planning to sell the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League or its one-quarter interest in Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders. The most recent sale of an NBA team drew about $6.1 billion for the Boston Celtics in March from Symphony Technology Group’s William Chisholm, though league approval of the deal is still pending.

SoftBank Group in Japan reported its first annual profit in four years as it ramped up investments in artificial intelligence, Kosaku Narioka reports for the Journal. The Tokyo-based company in recent years has made bigger investments as its earnings improve and tech stocks advance on the enthusiasm over artificial intelligence. Led by billionaire Masayoshi Son, SoftBank recently agreed to lead an investment of up to $40 billion in OpenAI, valuing the ChatGPT maker at $300 billion and investing through Vision Fund 2.

Fortress Investment Group in New York is setting up an office in Abu Dhabi to foster the firm’s expansion in the Middle East. Without naming the leaders of the new outpost, the firm said it would be staffed with executives with deep regional and sectoral expertise.

Growth investor Solyco Capital in Rochester, Mich., is joining with Crewstone International, a private-equity firm in Malaysia, to set up a partnership with more than $165 million in committed capital. Crewstone, which recently established a New York office, said the partnership will also work through Solyco’s new unit in the U.K.

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

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