Good day. If Wednesday foreshadows the remainder of the year for private equity, fasten your seatbelts—the fun is just getting started. If anyone knows of a pending deal—and there must be many, judging from yesterday's many headlines—please tip us off!

The deals included KKR's $2.7 billion move to bring all of insurer Global Atlantic in house, which led the firm to make a bunch of internal changes, including to the way compensation is determined and earnings are reported, as I explain.

Also, Blackstone began a $2.3 billion take-private campaign targeting Rover Group, an online market provider for pet-care services. And then there's billionaire Mark Cuban's plan to sell a big stake in his Dallas Mavericks basketball team and Ardian's investment in Heathrow, just to name a few more.

Finally, and not least, our Rod James has a scoop on Blackstone's latest secondaries fund, which has collected $2.6 billion, including related vehicles, to snap up secondhand real-estate fund investments. 

We have these and many more stories condensed and linked for you below, so please have a look...

Blackstone has finished fundraising for its largest vehicle yet dedicated to acquiring stakes in funds of other private investment firms focused on real estate and aims to take advantage of a growing need for cash among investors in the sector, Rod James reports for WSJ Pro Private Equity. The New York-based firm collected $2.6 billion for its Strategic Partners Real Estate VIII fund and related vehicles, around 37% more than the $1.9 billion raised for a predecessor program that wrapped up in 2020, the firm said. Many pension systems increased their real-estate bets in the past five years or so and now want to sell their older holdings to free up cash to invest in newer funds, said Verdun Perry, global head of Blackstone Strategic Partners, the firm’s secondary investing business. That trend has helped to create secondaries opportunities.

KKR & Co. is acquiring the rest of insurer Global Atlantic Financial Group in a $2.7 billion deal that came with a growth-focused reshuffling of business segments within the publicly traded private-equity firm, which also raised its earnings outlook, prompting a surge in its shares Wednesday, Ted Bunker reports for WSJ Pro Private Equity. The changes focus on driving long-term growth and include a new way of determining employee compensation that makes payouts less reliant on management fees and more dependent on investment realizations, executives said on a call about the revamp. New York-based KKR is acquiring the 37% of the Bermuda company that it doesn’t already own, a deal that will result in a gain of 10% or more in fee-related earnings next year, KKR said. KKR shares rose 7.7% to close at $74.74 in New York Wednesday.

Blackstone agreed to buy online pet-care marketplace Rover Group in a roughly $2.3 billion deal that bets on growing demand for such services, an area considered insulated from economic ups and downs, Maria Armental reports or WSJ Pro Private Equity. “Rover has a significant runway for growth as pet owners increasingly place a premium on high-quality care, flexibility and convenience,” Tushar Gupta, a principal at Blackstone, said in a statement. Private-equity firm True Wind Capital, venture-capital firm Menlo Ventures and other Rover investors that collectively represent about 40% of the company’s outstanding voting power as of Monday are backing the deal, according to a securities filing.

European buyout firm Ardian and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund are acquiring a 25% stake in the entity that owns Heathrow airport outside London from an affiliate of infrastructure company Ferrovial for £2.37 billion, or around $3 billion, Pierre Bertrand reports for the Journal. Ferrovial has been an investor in the airport, among the world's 10 busiest, for 17 years, during which time it has overseen £12 billion of investments, including expanding its capacity through the construction of Terminal 2.

At the heart of a nearly $11 billion takeover tussle for the owner of several Australian coal-fired power plants is a key question for investors: how to value a major polluter that could also become a big enabler of the energy transition, Dow Jones Newswires reporter Stuart Condie writes. It isn’t proving easy. A group led by Brookfield’s asset management arm is offering to buy Origin Energy through a deal worth 9.43 Australian dollars a share, equivalent to $6.21 a share, that it says is fair to shareholders. Brookfield says it will spend up to $30 billion on accelerating Origin’s shift to renewable energy and storage over the decade through 2033.

Scottish Equity Partners said it is backing software company Braincube, leading a growth investment of more than €80 million, or $87.8 million, in the business, joined by Bpifrance. The Issoire, France-based company makes industrial internet-of-things programs used by manufacturers to collect and analyze production data to make operations more efficient, according to a news release.

Madison Dearborn Partners said it has acquired T2S Solutions, a founder-owned company that provides research and development, engineering and technology products and services to the U.S. Defense Department, intelligence agencies and other government branches. The company’s founders are retaining a significant ownership stake and continue to lead the business.

Sports-focused Patricof Co said it is investing in private-equity backed athletics-oriented IMG Academy, joined by a variety of current and former professional athletes. Earlier this year European private-equity firm EQT AB acquired IMG through its BPEA EQT unit alongside portfolio company Nord Anglia Education. In an April press release, EQT valued the deal at $1.25 billion.

Raine Group said that its growth equity strategy Raine Partners led a £145 million, or around $184.2 million, investment in performance sportswear brand Castore. Hanaco Ventures and Felix Capital also backed the business through their respective growth equity strategies, according to a press release.

Lower midmarket growth firm Seacoast Capital said it has backed the first deal out of its fifth fund with an investment in Focus Technology Solutions, a Boston-based company that offers hardware, software and managed information technology services to businesses across the U.S. Seacoast backed the company out of Seacoast Capital Partners V, a $280 million fund established earlier this year.

WestBridge Capital and StepStone Group led a $32 million growth investment in software company DuploCloud, joined by existing investor Mayfield, according to a news release. The San Jose, Calif.-based company makes programs and provides services to software developers to automate and accelerate their operations.

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec said it is backing audiovisual and entertainment technology company Groupe Solotech with a minority growth investment. The Montréal-based company with around 2,000 employees provides systems used for events and sells and maintains audiovisual systems from 20 locations around the world.

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

Carlyle Group’s $1.3 billion deal to sell Assala Energy in Africa to Maurel & Prom in France may be facing a roadblock as Reuters reports that the national oil company of Gabon aims to pre-empt the deal, citing three unnamed sources. Gabon Oil advised Carlyle International Energy Partners that it would exercise a right under local law to step in as the buyer, Reuters said. The French company agreed to the deal in August, including the rollover of about $600 million in a credit facility.

Translink Capital Partners has collected about $173.7 million so far for its fifth flagship fund, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based venture capital firm primarily makes early stage investments in U.S. technology companies in sectors such as artificial intelligence, digital health, e-commerce and financial technology, according to its website.

Lion Equity Partners, a lower midmarket firm co-founded by two former investment professionals from Platinum Equity, has collected at least $110 million so far for Lion Equity Fund III and a related parallel fund, a regulatory filing indicates. The amount raised so far puts the fund nearly 75% toward a $150 million offering amount indicated in the filing. Denver-based Lion Equity targets investments in companies with between $30 million and $300 million of revenue and up to $15 million of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, according to the firm’s website.

In 2021, Apollo Global Management appointed Dave Stangis as its first chief sustainability officer. With more than 24 years of  experience in the feld, Stangis has built sustainability teams at both Intel and Campbell Soup. Stangis spoke with Rochelle Toplensky of WSJ Pro Sustainable Business about how he is injecting sustainability in the firm’s culture, how he approaches the logarithmic challenge of climate reporting for Apollo’s portfolio and his love of classic cars.

Healthcare investment firm Revelation Partners has hired Andrew Olson as partner, chief financial officer and chief operating officer, according to a statement. Olson joins the Sausalito-based firm from SVB Capital, where he was CFO and oversaw operations for its fund-of-funds, direct-investment and private-credit investment strategies.  Revelation is currently investing its $608 million Fund IV, which acquires positions in healthcare funds from investors and managers.

H.I.G. Capital expanded its capital formation team, adding Jenny Nelson and Joe Tremblay, managing directors based in California, and Jennie Park, who joined the firm as a principal based in New York. Nelson was previously at Evercore; Tremblay worked for IFM Investors; and Park joined from Briarcliffe Credit Partners.

ATL Partners, a private-equity firm focused on aerospace, transportation and logistics companies, said in an emailed statement that it has hired Gabi Peic as head of marketing and investor relations at the firm. Peic most recently served as a senior executive with a multi-generational, multi-asset-class family office that ATL didn't name.

Billionaire Mark Cuban is selling a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks basketball team to the widow of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson for around $2 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported. Cuban, known for his casual dress and emotional displays of support from the sidelines, purchased the team in 2000 for $280 million. The Mavericks have made the postseason 18 times and made two National Basketball Association Finals appearances during Cuban’s tenure, winning a championship in 2011.

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared ready Wednesday to scale back the Securities and Exchange Commission’s power to enforce securities laws through administrative hearings rather than jury trials, in a case that could threaten similar executive-branch procedures Congress authorized for consumer protection, workplace safety and other areas, the Journal reports.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has the largest pipeline of wind projects expected to be built in the U.S. through 2027, with a total capacity of 7,036 megawatts, WSJ Pro’s Luis Garcia reports for Dow Jones Newswires, citing S&P Global Market Intelligence. In another illustration of the role of private capital in the expansion of renewable energy in the country, Invenergy, which is backed by Blackstone, is the third-largest owner of solar projects planned for the same five-year period, representing a total capacity of 8,416 megawatts. Overall, the top 10 U.S. renewable-energy developers plan to add 69,266 megawatts of solar and 41,098 megawatts of wind capacity through 2027.

Kimmeridge Energy Management’s carbon solutions investment fund said it is partnering with Storegga Limited to identify, develop and deploy large-scale carbon capture and storage projects. The joint effort will initially focus on projects in Wyoming, a news release stated.

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

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