Happy Friday! As we head into the weekend, our own Chris Cumming continues his coverage of state legislative efforts to prevent corporate investors, including private equity, from interfering in medical care. Meanwhile, earnings season has officially kicked off with Blackstone being the first large listed private-markets firm to report. As our own Luis Garcia and Dow Jones Newswires’ Freddy Sebastian write, the firm deployed a whopping $138 billion last year and expects deal activity to continue accelerating this year.

Finally, our WSJ Pro Bankruptcy colleagues report that First Brands Founder Patrick James and his Brother Edward were indicted by federal prosecutors,  the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of the bankrupt auto-parts company.

Have a great weekend and now on to the news..

State lawmakers this month proposed new bills against corporate interference in medicine, as the backlash against private equity’s involvement in healthcare continues to spread, WSJ Pro's Chris Cumming reports. Legislators in Washington, New Mexico, Vermont and Maine in recent weeks introduced bills banning the corporate practice of medicine, referring to the interference by financial investors in the relationship between doctor and patient. While the proposed bills vary, each would make it more difficult for private-equity firms to buy and own in-state medical practices, lawyers say.

Blackstone expects its dealmaking to accelerate after investing $138.21 billion last year and amassing nearly $200 billion in unspent capital, as the giant private-equity firm leverages data harvested from hundreds of its portfolio companies to get a better picture of markets and the economy, WSJ Pro's Luis Garcia reports. The New York firm draws insights from more than 270 businesses and nearly 13,000 real-estate assets it holds through its funds, while managing a large credit strategy. Those insights gave the firm conviction to commit the highest amount of capital to deals in four years, executives said during a call with analysts to discuss quarterly results.

First Brands Group founder Patrick James and his brother Edward were indicted by federal prosecutors on charges of defrauding lenders ahead of the auto-parts company’s collapse into bankruptcy, rocking private-credit markets last year, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reports. The charges involve alleged faked and falsely inflated invoices, double- and triple-pledged loan collateral, falsified financial statements and concealed liabilities. A representative for Patrick James said he denies the charges, while his brother's lawyer said no evidence of wrongdoing has been produced.

Carlyle Group struck a provisional deal to buy sanctioned Russian energy giant Lukoil's international assets, potentially handing the private-equity firm a sprawling portfolio of oil fields, refineries and gas stations, The Wall Street Journal reports. Lukoil didn't disclose a price in announcing the deal Thursday, adding that it was still negotiating with other potential buyers. The proposed agreement would also require signoff from the U.S. Treasury Department, which has acted as gatekeeper on the sale since blacklisting the Russian energy producer in the fall. Lukoil's assets span American gas stations, refiners in Europe and oil fields in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Asset manager TPG has acquired a majority interest in broker Palmer & Cay, investing through its newly formed Third Wave Insurance business, WSJ Pro's Ted Bunker reports, citing a person familiar with the matter. TPG's growth strategy set up Third Wave with plans to expand technology-enabled operations in the retail insurance brokerage industry. Founded in 1868, Palmer & Cay serves corporate clients offering both property and casualty coverage, as well as employee benefits products with offices across the southeastern U.S.

Coatue Management and Index Ventures led a $250 million growth investment in software company Decagon, which specializes in customer-experience-management applications bolstered by agentic artificial-intelligence technology. The deal values the San Francisco-based company at $4.5 billion. Other participants included Bain Capital, Definition Capital and Starwood Capital.

Lingotto Innovation, an investment arm of the Fiat-founding Agnelli family's Exor holding company, and Lightspeed Venture Partners led a $100 million growth investment in German robotics company RobCo, joined by others including Sequoia Capital, Greenfield Partners and Kindred Capital. The Munich company uses artificial-intelligence technology in its products.

Apollo Global Management has provided about €900 million in senior secured financing to a collection of logistics and industrial holdings owned by a Cerberus Capital Management and Arrow Capital Partners joint venture. Apollo's investment mainly refinances existing debt tied to the venture, Strategic Industrial Real Estate, which consists of 92 individual assets located in the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland and Poland.

Growth investor Metropolitan Partners Group in New York is providing $100 million in credit to residential property transfer technology developer Propy, whose artificial intelligence and blockchain tech is designed to automate real-estate purchase closings. The San Francisco company plans to expand through acquisitions of title companies and escrow services providers.

Infrastructure investor First Reserve in Stamford, Conn., is backing design and professional services provider WGI, which works with public and private project managers. The West Palm Beach, Fla.-based company operates from 23 offices across the U.S.

Breakwall Capital is providing $35 million in financing to residential solar power specialist Terra Energy through a "green loan" to the ARC PE-backed business based in Miami.

Existing backer Rubicon Founders led a $50 million growth investment in insurance services provider Indigo, joined by Town Hall Ventures and Optum Ventures, among others. Indigo specializes in medical liability coverage.

The value of sponsor-backed entry deals soared nearly 81% last year from 2024 and surpassed the boom year of 2021, rising to almost $496.85 billion, though the number of deals declined about 9.7%, according to data provider Dealogic. Exit deals also surged last year, climbing 69% to $356.38 billion, the highest since 2021, while the number of deals also rose slightly to 533, Dealogic's figures show.

Rubicon Technology Partners in Boulder, Colo., has acquired a majority stake in Procede Software, a Solana Beach, Calif.-based provider of programs used to manage commercial vehicle dealerships.

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

GenNx360 Capital Partners is selling Precision Aviation Group to strategic buyer VSE for as much as $2.15 billion in cash and equity, Kelly Cloonan reports for the Journal. The deal for the Atlanta-based provider of aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul services includes about $1.75 billion in cash and $275 million in equity, as well as potential earnouts worth up to $125 million. New York-based GenNx360 first backed the company in 2018, according to the firm's website. Precision operates 29 locations.

Widely backed by private equity and venture capital, ChatGPT developer OpenAI in San Francisco is laying the groundwork for a public listing later this year, accelerating its plans as competition with rival Anthropic intensifies, the Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter. Separately, the Journal reported that the company is in talks with Amazon.com about a $50 billion investment at an enterprise value of as much as $850 billion. OpenAI's backers include Blackstone, the asset-management arm of JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bond Capital and nearly 170 others, according to data provider PitchBook.

Liftoff Mobile on Thursday disclosed terms of a planned initial public offering that could give the mobile app marketing platform an initial market capitalization topping $5 billion, Colin Kellaher reports for Dow Jones Newswires. Asset manager Blackstone currently owns 57% of Liftoff, while private-equity group General Atlantic owns 16.3% of the Redwood City, Calif., company.

Private-equity firm AE Industrial Partners-backed York Space Systems saw its shares jump as much as 13% in its trading debut Thursday, only to give up the gains and end the session down almost 1.2%. The company's initial public offering priced at $34 a share, the high end of the expected range, giving it an initial market capitalization approaching $5 billion, Colin Kellaher reported for Dow Jones Newswires.

Africa-focused Adenia Partners and Proparco are selling food-service company OCS Group's Moroccan and Senegal operations to a group led by Morocco's Retail Holding, alongside pan-African investment fund Amethis. Adenia and Proparco invested in the company in 2021.

Midmarket-focused CapStreet Management in Houston has acquired TOPS Field Services, a provider of inspection, maintenance and other services for gas-fired turbines, liquefied natural gas equipment and power generators. The Huffman, Texas-based company serves clients across North America.

Finnish firm eQ Private Equity has raised €155 million, or about $185.6 million, so far across four new funds, including eQ PE XVIII North, eQ PE SF VI and a co-investment vehicle, eQ PE Direct I. The firm has also established a venture investment fund-of-funds, eQ VC III US, to back funds raised by North American venture-capital shops.

Citigroup's Hong Kong and Singapore branches and alternative-asset partners Blackstone, Blue Owl Capital and KKR & Co. are launching evergreen funds for the U.S. bank's high-net-worth clients seeking to diversify their investments, Megan Cheah reports for Dow Jones Newswires. The funds will offer access to private markets with more flexible subscription and liquidity terms than traditional closed-ended private-markets offerings, subject to a minimum initial holding period.

Summit Partners has announced a raft of promotions, including four new partners: Chris Bon, Meg Devine, Ross Murphy and Jono Pagden.

Falfurrias Management Partners in Charlotte, N.C., has promoted Katie-Rose Austin, Grant Hundley and Hugh McColl IV to principal, and moved Jubal Early up to vice president.

Secondaries specialist Lexington Partners has appointed Y.S. Yang as a senior adviser based in Seoul. He is a former chief executive of STIC Alternative.

BlackRock is reviving questions about the accuracy of financial disclosures to individual investors in the booming private-credit industry, Matt Wirz writes for the Journal. BlackRock’s business-development company, BlackRock TCP Capital, surprised investors last week when it disclosed a 19% decline in the net asset value of the investments it owns. The BDC, which reported total assets of $1.8 billion in September, blamed the write-downs on the poor performance of investments in the last quarter of 2025.

Bonaccord Capital Partners, owned by asset manager P10 in Dallas, is collaborating with alternative asset investment facilitator CAIS, legally named Capital Integration Systems, in New York, to offer prospective investors access to Bonaccord's investments in midmarket private equity firms. The arrangement opens Bonaccord investments to the more than 2,000 wealth management services providers and 62,000 financial advisers.

Three Chinese companies are lining up to raise over $2 billion in Hong Kong as the city's capital markets continue to be a hotbed of activity, Jason Chau reports for Dow Jones Newswires. The companies include Shenzhen-listed Muyuan Foods, one of the world's biggest hog farming businesses and whose backers include private-equity firm Jane Street. Singapore's GIC, asset managers Schroders and Hillhouse Investment are investors in Shenzhen Han's CNC Technology.

Harvest Partners-backed dental-practice services provider Affordable Care has hired restructuring advisers from AlixPartners as the company struggles to service debt stemming from a 2021 leveraged buyout by private-equity firm Harvest that valued the business at about $2.7 billion, WSJ Pro's Jodi Xu Klein reports, citing people familiar with the matter. The company serves dental practices across 40 states.

BlackRock and Partners Group have set up three separately managed accounts designed to attract wealthy individual investors and their financial advisers. Each SMA was established using different outcome models for its investments and includes private equity, credit and real assets through seven evergreen funds managed by the two firms and BlackRock's HPS Investment Partners.

Clearlake Capital Group-backed bottle manufacturer Pretium Packaging sought bankruptcy court approval for a prepackaged restructuring that would reduce its debt by over $900 million while securing $50 million in fresh capital from Clearlake and $530 million in financing from existing lenders, Megan Cheah reports for Dow Jones Newswires. Clearlake said in January 2020 that it had acquired the company in a buyout that included management.

Lower interest rates and greater market stability give the private-equity industry reasons to be optimistic heading into 2026, law firm Debevoise & Plimpton says in a new report. The report also cites the narrowing gap between asset buyers and sellers, as well as pent-up dry powder as fueling deal activity this year.

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