Good morning and congratulations to the mothers among you! We start the week with my colleague Isaac Taylor reporting on the premium that private-credit fundraising professionals still command, despite—or maybe because of—negative headlines popping up about the market.

Talking about fundraising, Brookfield Asset Management sees a record year ahead for collecting new capital after amassing $67 billion so far this year, more than half as much as it raised in all of last year, Robb M. Stewart and my editor Ted Bunker write.

Now onto the news...

Private-credit firms continue to pay up for capital formation talent in a challenging fundraising market, WSJ Pro's Isaac Taylor writes. Private-credit fundraising and sales professionals earned median total estimated compensation of $825,000 in 2025, compared with $800,000 total median compensation for such talent across all private markets, according to a recent study from executive search firm Jensen Partners. The study was based on a 2025 survey of 1,095 private-markets professionals, nearly 80% of whom held senior roles of director or higher. More than half of the survey respondents were private-credit professionals.

Brookfield Asset Management has added $67 billion in assets so far this year, more than half the capital it raised in all of 2025 and putting it on pace to reach a fundraising high, Robb M. Stewart and Ted Bunker report for WSJ Pro. “We expect it to be a record year for fundraising and not by a little bit,” Chief Executive Connor Teskey said during a call Friday to discuss first-quarter results with securities analysts. The New York-based firm collected $21 billion for its funds in the period and expects overall growth in 2026 to top its long-term targets. Currently raising multiple funds, the firm expects its latest private-equity pool to be its largest ever, Teskey said. Its latest flagship buyout vehicle has already collected $6 billion and is headed for a first close.

General Atlantic has taken private personal care company European Wax Center in an all-cash deal that implied an enterprise value of about $640 million. The New York firm paid investors $5.80 a share for the Nasdaq-listed business based in Plano, Texas. The company has more than 1,000 locations scattered across 44 states and generated revenue of $951 million in 2024.

American investment firm Architect Capital is buying a 16% stake in adult-content website operator OnlyFans for $535 million in a deal that values the business at $3.15 billion, Ben Dummett reports for The Wall Street Journal. The transaction caps months of talks about a potential investment and comes less than two months after company owner Leo Radvinsky died from cancer. San Francisco-based Architect typically invests in financial infrastructure.

Clean energy-focused Sandbrook Capital has committed more than 200 million euros, or about $235.7 million, to establish KRIOS Infrastructure, a developer of locations across Europe that have the required resources for the construction of large-scale data centers, including access to power supplies. Sandbrook and private-equity peer NGP Energy Capital Management about two years ago backed another business—Cloverleaf Infrastructure—that helps data-center operators secure electricity sources.

Buyout firm EQT AB's improved $12.1 billion takeover proposal for London-listed test and certification company Intertek failed to satisfy the company's directors, who rejected the proposal Friday, saying that it undervalues the business, Adam Whittaker reports for the Journal. EQT raised its offer to £58 a share, valuing the company at £8.93 billion, last Tuesday in its third attempt to acquire the operation. The company is continuing with a strategic review into selling or demerging its Energy & Infrastructure unit from Intertek Testing & Assurance, it said.

Strategic Value Partners has bought a majority stake in the equity interests of New Frontera Holdings, a 530-megawatt natural gas-fired combined-cycle generation facility located in Mission, Texas. SVP initially backed the company in 2021 through a first lien term loan but later converted its holding to equity and has increased its ownership over time. Separately, SVP also agreed to acquire the remaining equity interests in Birdsboro Power, a 485-megawatt natural gas-fired power generation facility in Birdsboro, Pa. SVP initially acquired a one-third equity stake in Birdsboro in 2025.

Existing backer Ares Management participated in a private placement of about 15 million Kodiak AI shares priced at $6.50 each, joined by several new investors in the autonomous vehicle company, Christopher Kuo reports for Dow Jones Newswires. Kodiak, which raised about $100 million from the placement, saw its shares plunge about 20% Friday after disclosure of the placement late Thursday, priced at a roughly 29% discount to that day's close at $9.10.

Apax Partners has agreed to acquire a controlling stake in supply-chain risk-management software and services provider Sedex Information Exchange from its corporate parent Sedex Holdings, which will retain a minority stake in the unit under a new name SHL Membership. The deal also provides an exit for minority investor LDC, which acquired its stake in Sedex in 2023.

Blackstone and I Squared Capital are weighing a bid for Frankfurt-listed Stroeer that could value the media company at €2.5 billion, or $2.94 billion, Bloomberg News reported.

Clean energy-focused investment firm FH Capital has agreed to acquire a roughly 75% stake in JinkoSolar subsidiary Jinko Solar (U.S.) Industries. New York-listed JinkoSolar will retain a nearly 25% interest. FH Capital plans to invest additional sums to expand the unit’s solar module production capacity and support domestic manufacturing of battery energy storage systems.

Main Capital Partners is backing software company CarCollect, which specializes in applications used by businesses to trade vehicles, manage inventories and transport cars and trucks in Europe. The Netherlands-based company serves around 750 companies and aims to expand to new markets with the fresh capital.

Stride Consumer Partners has led a growth investment in haircare products brand Crown Affair, in a deal that the firm said consisted largely of secondary capital. True Beauty Ventures was an earlier backer of Crown Affair.

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

Inspire Brands, a Roark Capital Group-backed franchisor of restaurant chains that include Arby’s, Dunkin', Buffalo Wild Wings and Sonic, has confidentially filed for an initial public offering, the Journal reports. Roark bought a majority of Arby’s Restaurant Group in 2011 and has added several other brands. Inspire bought Dunkin’ Brands Group for $8.8 billion in 2020, taking the company private.

Greenbriar Equity Group-backed Applied Aerospace & Defense has registered for an initial public offering of shares without specifying how many shares it plans to sell or at what price. Greenwich, Conn.-based Greenbriar has backed the Huntsville, Ala., provider of design, engineering and manufacturing services to the aerospace and defense sector or its predecessor businesses since at least 2021. The firm currently holds its interest in its fifth flagship fund.

OrbiMed-backed clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company Odyssey Therapeutics shares fell about 8.8% in their trading debut Friday, closing at $16.42 after pricing at $18, the high end of the expected range, and opening at $20 on the Nasdaq stock market. The Boston company is developing treatments for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. OrbiMed held a 9% stake in the business before the initial public offering, which gave the company a market capitalization of about $812.8 million. Other backers include TPG with 7.6% and Dimension Management with 7.3%, a regulatory filing shows.

Apollo Global Management sold just over 102 million shares of security services company ADT last week, completing its exit from the Boca Raton, Fla.-based company, a securities filing showed. The shares traded around $7 each around the time the sale closed, suggesting the stake was worth about $714 million. Apollo acquired the company in 2016 for nearly $7 billion and held it through its January 2018 IPO, priced at $8 a share. The firm still held 277.6 million ADT shares in early 2018 following the offering.

Kline Hill Partners has served as a lead investor in the formation of a continuation fund to recapitalize Sugar Beets, a cafe, bakery and lifestyle brand backed by trans-Atlantic private-equity firm TriSpan. Other investors in the single-asset continuation fund included Norwest and an unnamed Ivy League endowment. TriSpan initially invested in the company in 2020 and will make a meaningful reinvestment as part of the continuation fund transaction.

Wesley Edens, the co-founder of Fortress Investment Group and co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, answered a LinkedIn message from a China-born entrepreneur in 2022 that blossomed into a correspondence. The correspondence with Changli “Sophia” Luo led to a brief relationship that spiraled into an alleged extortion plot, the Journal reports.

The credit arm of buyouts firm CVC Capital Partners priced its first European collateralized loan obligation of this year with about €406 million, or $478 million. CVC already priced a U.S. CLO earlier this year. The latest vehicle, Cordatus XXXVIII, has a 54-month reinvestment period.

Send us your tips, suggestions and feedback. Write to:

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