Welcome back!  Greenwich, Conn.-based Atlas Holdings has collected $6.45 billion to invest in underperforming companies, a strategy likely to benefit from ongoing market turmoil, according to WSJ Pro's Laura Kreutzer. Atlas Capital Resources V was a rare one-and-done fundraise at a time when attracting investor backing has proved challenging.

Apollo Global Management is also moving quickly to exploit opportunities brought about by tariff-induced volatility, putting $25 billion of capital to work in the month of April alone, according to WSJ Pro's Luis Garcia.

Now onto the news..

Atlas Holdings has raised $6.45 billion to back underperforming or struggling companies, a strategy the firm’s co-founders say will benefit from growing market uncertainty, WSJ Pro’s Laura Kreutzer reports. The Greenwich, Conn.-based private investment firm raised Atlas Capital Resources V with a single closing and more than double the $3.1 billion that the firm raised for a predecessor fund in 2021. The firm closed its newest fund as market volatility and rising trade tensions put more pressure on corporate balance sheets. “We think the timing is great,” said Andrew Bursky, an Atlas co-founder and managing partner. “We went a little bigger in part because we think the opportunity set is going to be quite rich.”

Apollo Global Management invested $109 billion in the year to date and $25 billion in April alone, as the credit specialist moved to take advantage of opportunities brought about by tariff-driven market turbulence, WSJ Pro’s Luis Garcia reports. Listed assets accounted for a majority of Apollo’s investments last month as investors in public securities were the first to experience “limited liquidity,” a trend the firm expects to persist, said Chief Executive Marc Rowan on a first-quarter earnings call Friday. The capital flight from U.S. stocks triggered by tariff threats ended a period of U.S. “hyper exceptionalism” in world markets, Rowan said, adding that fund investors might be inclined to hold back on investing in the U.S. until a political resolution is reached.

Accel and New Enterprise Associates led a $275 million growth investment in Chaos Industries, joined by StepStone Group, Valor Equity Partners and others. California-based Chaos is developing radar, and other sensing and communications technologies for defense applications. The latest round brings the total capital raised by Chaos since its inception to $490 million.

Madison Dearborn Partners has agreed to buy a significant stake in NextGen Healthcare from fellow private-equity firm Thoma Bravo, which will retain a stake in the healthcare technology and data provider. Thoma Bravo initially backed NexGen Healthcare in 2023 in a $1.8 billion take-private deal. The Madison Dearborn deal is expected to close in the second quarter.

Investment consultant Mercer has completed the acquisition of SECOR Asset Management, a deal first announced in February. SECOR offers investment advice and risk management services to institutional investors. The New York firm advises on $13.8 billion of financial assets and manages more than $21 billion in a hedged equity fund.

Strategic Value Partners has acquired Birdsboro Power, a natural gas-fired power plant in Berks County, Pa. The acquisition was made through SVP Funds, a joint venture formed in 2024 between the $22 billion special situations firm and asset manager EverGen Power to acquire and manage power assets in North America.

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 has sold a roughly 10.4% stake in non-banking mortgage finance company PNB Housing Finance, an Indian firm that Carlyle backed through Quality Investment Holdings, according to a report from Bajaj Broking in Mumbai, citing a market filing. Bajaj said the block-trade deal priced at a 5% discount to the previous close for the shares. PNB has a market capitalization of roughly $3.1 billion, according to Wall Street Journal data. Reuters said Carlyle first backed the business in 2015.

Partners Capital Investment Group has appointed Andy Canovali as managing director and head of secondaries, according to an emailed statement. Canovali joins from Sagard, where he led the asset manager’s secondaries team. He is joined by Senior Associate Sarah Condon, also formerly of Sagard. Partners Capital advises endowments, foundations and wealthy individuals on investing around $60 billion of financial assets.

Runway Growth Capital has promoted Avisha Khubani to managing director of portfolio analytics. She joined the firm in 2018. BC Partners controls Runway Growth through a transaction that closed in January, according to a regulatory filing.

The Investment Company Institute’s Eric Pan added his voice to those calling for giving everyday investors access to booming private markets, Kenneth Corbin reports for Barron’s. Pan laid out the ICI's agenda at a conference in Washington last week, saying that while the volume of assets held in private markets has exploded in recent years, investing rules have kept those assets beyond the reach of too many investors. “Retail investors don't have the same access" as institutions and wealthy individuals, leaving them stuck with investing in a shrinking pool of publicly listed securities, he said.

The co-head of alternative asset manager Blue Owl Capital, Marc Lipschultz, said he expects private-credit funds to be able to charge higher interest on the loans they issue as market turmoil causes banks, their main rivals, to rein in lending to private-equity-owned companies. “We certainly expect to see spreads start to widen, but it'll potentially take a little bit of time for that to roll through,” Lipschultz said on the firm’s first-quarter earnings call. U.S. banks didn't launch a new syndicated loan for a period of 14 days in April, the longest drought on record, according to Bloomberg News. The tariff plans of President Trump have yet to lead to higher rates of loan impairment for Blue Owl. The number of companies with material manufacturing capacity outside the U.S. amounts to a “mid-single-digit” percentage of the firm’s overall loan portfolio, said Chief Financial Officer Alan Kirshenbaum.

A Cartesian Capital Group-affiliated blank check company, Cartesian Growth Corp. III raised the value of its initial public offering 20% to 24 million shares, which priced at $10 each before trading began Friday on the Nasdaq stock market. Peter Yu, New York-based Cartesian Capital’s managing partner, serves as chief executive of the special purpose acquisition company which initially filed to sell 20 million shares. The IPO price included warrants, with each share purchased bringing with it a half of a warrant to purchase an additional share for $11.50. The SPAC aims to combine with a high-growth business to provide it with a public listing, according to its IPO registration document.

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