Welcome bank Pro PE readers! Tomorrow is election day here in the U.S. and the nation will vote in one of the most tightly contested midterm elections in recent memory. Professionals at private-equity firms aren't hesitating to put their capital behind their favorite candidates, driving campaign contributions to a midterm election year high, as Chris Cumming writes in this morning’s newsletter. Meanwhile, HighVista Strategies has raised $450 million for its second opportunistic credit fund, while Thomas Barrack, founder of Colony Capital, now DigitalBridge, has been acquitted of charges that he illegally lobbied former President Donald Trump on behalf of the United Arab Emirates, among other allegations.

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HighVista Strategies, a Boston-based firm that invests across multiple alternative strategies, has raised $450 million to invest in niche private-credit deals, Laura Kreutzer reports for WSJ Pro Private Equity. The amount collected for its HighVista Strategies Private Credit Opportunities Fund II LP and its related vehicles is roughly $100 million more than the firm raised for a predecessor vehicle, according to Raphael Schorr, a HighVista partner and its deputy chief investment officer. The earlier credit fund closed in 2019.

Thomas Barrack, a businessman and ally of Donald Trump, was acquitted of charges that he illegally lobbied the former president and his administration on behalf of the United Arab Emirates, James Fanelli and Corinne Ramey report for The Wall Street Journal. The verdict, which also found Mr. Barrack not guilty of lying to federal investigators, handed another blow to the Justice Department, which has faced a series of setbacks in its yearslong push to address what it sees as hidden foreign influence in U.S. politics. Matthew Grimes, Mr. Barrack’s former assistant and co-defendant in the trial, was found not guilty of the two charges against him relating to acting as a foreign agent of the U.A.E. The verdict came on Friday, the third day of deliberations by a federal jury in Brooklyn, N.Y., after a six-week trial.

At the WSJ Risk & Compliance Forum on Nov. 16, Melanie Sponholz, chief compliance officer with Waud Capital Partners Healthcare, will be discussing regulatory scrutiny of private equity. To join the conversation, register here with the code WSJPRO.

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec said in a press release that it has contributed to a €485 million, equivalent to $483 million, acquisition financing package supporting KKR & Co.’s tender offer for publicly traded French renewable energy company Albioma SA. KKR offered to buy the majority of the company for €50 per share earlier this year, a deal that values the company at €1.61 billion. Albioma operates 14 generating plants with a capacity to produce more than 1 gigawatt of electricity, including some that consume agricultural waste. CDPQ is backing the deal as part of a $10 billion program announced in late 2021 supporting companies in the heaviest carbon emitting sectors to reduce the carbon intensity of their activities.

Autumn is usually one of the busiest times of the year in finance but new stock sales, debt raises and corporate mergers all slowed to a trickle in recent weeks. The supply of cash that fuels such deals is evaporating and the slowdown likely is here to stay, the Journal’s Matt Wirz reports, citing bankers, investors and corporate lawyers.

A blank check company tied to private-equity firm Primavera Capital Group in Beijing, Primavera Capital Acquisition Corp., has set a shareholder meeting next month so investors can vote on its plan to combine with luxury fashion company Lanvin Group Holdings Ltd. in Shanghai, a regulatory filing shows. At the same time, the special purpose acquisition company said the pre-money equity value of Lanvin has declined some 20% to about $1 billion from $1.25 billion previously, reflecting market changes since March when the deal was announced. The SPAC also said it has canceled a bonus pool set up for its shareholders who don’t redeem their stock and is exploring a substitute plan to offer incentives for shareholders to hold on to their stock. In addition, the SPAC said South Korean financial services provider Meritz Financial Group has committed $50 million to the deal through a private investment in public securities, or PIPE transaction.

Add Alec Gores to the list of prolific sponsors calling it quits on blank-check companies that haven't found deals yet. The private-equity billionaire said he is liquidating three of his special purpose acquisition companies--Gores Holdings VII Inc., Gores Technology Partners Inc. and Gores Technology Partners II Inc.--and will return cash to investors, Amrith Ramkumar reports for The Wall Street Journal. The three together hold about $1.3 billion. While Mr. Gores reiterated his confidence in the SPAC model for bringing companies public, he cited current market conditions in determining liquidation is best for shareholders. The action follows similar moves among other SPACs, including some whose executives have cited a stock buyback tax imposed through the Inflation Reduction Act that could apply to liquidations starting next year.

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

Antin Infrastructure Partners SA said its flagship fund Antin Infrastructure Partners V has secured a total of €6.8 billion, equivalent to $6.63 billion, which puts the fund more than halfway to a €12 billion hard cap, according to information included in the firm’s latest earnings release. Antin held a €5.3 billion first closing for the fund at the end of the third quarter and has amassed the remaining commitments since that time. Separately, the firm has raised €900 million for its NextGen Fund I, which has a €1.2 billion target, the earnings release stated. The Next Gen fund focuses on emerging infrastructure, such as micro power grids and electric-vehicle-charging stations, WSJ Pro Private Equity previously reported.

Flush with investor capital, technology startups plan to scoop up software developers, engineers and marketers flooding the labor market following job cuts at Twitter Inc., Lyft Inc. and other large tech employers, Angus Loten writes for WSJ Pro Venture Capital.

The Los Angeles City Employees Retirement System will likely slow its private-equity commitment pace in 2023, according to a proposal that will be presented to the pension manager’s board at its Nov. 8 meeting. The proposal from Lacers’ consultant Aksia calls for the pension system to allocate up to $850 million for commitments to the asset class in 2023, below an initial $1.375 billion allocated for commitments in 2022 and a $1 billion to $1.1 billion working target for the year, revised downward due to market volatility, according to the consultant’s presentation. The 2023 proposal calls for commitments ranging from $40 million to $75 million each to 10 to 15 firms. Lacers’ private equity portfolio represented around 18.2% of the pension’s portfolio, above a 16% target, the presentation shows.

Crestview Partners-backed cruise ship and ferry operator Hornblower Group Inc. faces a group of lenders that has hired a legal adviser to negotiate over reworking its debt load, Alexander Gladstone and Jodi Xu Klein report for WSJ Pro Bankruptcy, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The lender group has hired law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP to handle expected talks with Hornblower, the people said. San Francisco-based Hornblower is preparing to refinance debt to mitigate a slow recovery of ridership for its vessels, they said. Representatives for Hornblower, Shearman & Sterling and Crestview Partners didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Blue Owl Capital Inc. said it had net income of almost $2.1 million in the third quarter compared with a narrower net loss in the year-earlier period, with both results too small to measure on a per-share basis. The New York firm said fee-related earnings surged 48% to $209.8 million in the just-ended quarter while distributable earnings reached $191.7 million, or 14 cents per share. Revenue rose 13% to about $371 million. The firm added $8.8 billion in equity capital over the third quarter and ended September with $132.1 billion in assets under management, a gain of 87% compared with a year earlier. “We continue to feel very well positioned for the current market environment, with strategies that offer investors income generation, principal preservation and inflation mitigation,” said Doug Ostrover, Blue Owl’s chief executive.

Technology infrastructure-focused DigitalBridge Group Inc. tumbled to a $63.3 million, or 39 cents per share, net loss for the third quarter even as its distributable earnings surged to $39.3 million, or 22 cents a share, from $700,000, or 1 cent a share, a year earlier. The Boca Raton, Fla.-based company that evolved from real estate specialist Colony Capital said revenue rose nearly 18% to $296.6 million and assets under management rose 33% to $50.3 billion at the end of September. The firm highlighted its exit of the Wildstone outdoor advertising business, which was sold to Antin Infrastructure Partners SA at a price equivalent to 26 times adjusted pretax earnings and delivered a return of 1.7 times invested capital in less than three years of ownership. “Despite macro headwinds, our portfolio companies continue to demonstrate strong growth, highlighting the resilience of the digital infrastructure sector," Marc Ganzi, chief executive, said of the results.

Longtime China investor Tiger Global Management has hit pause on investing in Chinese equities, said people familiar with the matter, as the firm reassesses its exposure to the world’s second-largest economy after President Xi Jinping cemented his control over the country, the Journal's Juliet Chung and Jing Yang report. Tiger executives, including founder Charles “Chase” Coleman, have told others that Mr. Xi’s reelection and his stacking of the Communist Party’s leadership with loyalists at the recent party Congress could increase geopolitical tensions and means the country’s zero-Covid policy will likely continue, the people said.

A New York judge is requiring a court-appointed monitor for Donald Trump’s family business while it faces a civil-fraud lawsuit from state Attorney General Letitia James, Laura Kusisto and Corinne Ramey report for The Wall Street Journal. Judge Arthur Engoron in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan said he took the action because of “persistent misrepresentations” by the Trump family’s business in its financial statements over the past decade. The monitor’s role is to make sure the company follows the rules of a preliminary injunction regarding the submission of financial statements to insurers and lenders, among other things.

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