Happy Friday! Another week has ended and I will be heading off this weekend to catch up with former classmates at my high school reunion. Thankyou to all of you who logged on yesterday to listen to our webinar. We hope to have a video of it available sometime next week for those who missed it.

Our newsletter this morning kicks off with a story from me about the formation of what has become something of an endangered species in the Israeli private markets industry: a buyout firm. Stella Cohen has launched David Group Capital Management to invest in mature Israeli companies in sectors outside of the nation’s hot startup ecosystem.

Meanwhile, Chris Cumming looks at how state laws governing private equity investments in healthcare have moved beyond words to enforcement with separate actions in the states of California and Oregon.

Read on for more details on these stories and more and have a great weekend.

After years as a dealmaker in both Israel and North America, Stella Cohen is starting a new firm focused on Israeli deals, but unlike many of its peers, David Group Capital Management isn’t targeting venture or pure technology investments, Laura Kreutzer reports for WSJ Pro. Instead, the Herzliya-based firm is focusing on investments in mature Israel-based or -owned companies that its founders feel are often overlooked by other capital providers, particularly local ones.

State laws restricting private-equity involvement in the medical sector have taken their first scalps, as authorities signal an aggressive approach to enforcement, Chris Cumming reports for WSJ Pro. Last year, lawmakers in California and Oregon passed measures to prevent corporate healthcare investors from encroaching on medical care, part of a broad backlash against private equity’s role in the sector. The new laws started to bite last week.

Brookfield Corp. in Toronto has picked up $2 billion in shares of Elon Musk’s SpaceX ahead of its initial public offering as the investment firm taps into businesses that stand to benefit from the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence, Robb M. Stewart reports for the Journal. Brookfield said it has amassed SpaceX shares at the current pre-IPO mark, with about $1 billion of the shares owned directly and the remainder by its affiliates.

Bain Capital and Japanese internet services company LY Corp. have raised their proposed offer to acquire Tokyo-listed ecommerce business Kakaku.com to ¥3,232 per share, giving the company an equity value of roughly $4.05 billion. They had indicated on May 7 that they would pay ¥3,000 a share, but a rival offer from EQT AB subsequently matched that amount. Kakaku shares slipped to ¥3,400 each Thursday after surging Wednesday on news of the EQT bid.

General Atlantic has invested in PowerGEM through the private-equity firm’s BeyondNetZero strategy. General Atlantic joins fellow private-equity investor TA Associates as a backer of PowerGEM, which offers software and technical services to the power industry. Boston-based TA has backed the company since 2024. In addition to the latest transaction, PowerGEM also announced that it has acquired engineering consultant Telos Energy.

Lower midmarket debt and equity investor Balance Point Capital Advisors is investing in The Edge as part of the company’s acquisition by Serent Capital. The Edge of Shelton, Conn., offers software for independent jewelry retailers. Josh Brenner has joined as the company’s chief executive while founder Dick Abbott is retiring after 25 years.

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

Benchmark Capital Management-backed silicon chip maker Cerebras Systems shares soared Thursday after pricing at $185, above the expected range, to raise around $5.6 billion. The stock opened at $350 and closed at $311.07. Benchmark held about 9.4% of the shares heading into the deal. Other backers included Foundation Capital Management, with an 8.2% stake, and Alpha Wave Global, with 6.4% before the IPO.

Buyout firms EQT AB and PAI Partners are selling air cargo transport services provider World Freight Co. to Brookfield Asset Management. Reuters reported that the deal gives the company an enterprise value of about $1.2 billion. PAI has backed the business since 2018, according to the firm's website.

Blackstone's data center-focused Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust debuted on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday, priced at $20 a share to raise as much as $2 billion for the investment fund. But the real-estate investment trust's shares slipped as much as 2% during afternoon trading and closed at $19.81.

Brookfield Asset Management has collected just over $900 million so far for its latest flagship real-estate debt fund, Brookfield Real Estate Finance Fund VII, which the New York-based firm began raising last year, a regulatory filing shows. The firm closed a predecessor vehicle with about $4 billion in 2021 with a strategy that focused on high-quality properties in major U.S. markets as well as select locations in Europe and the U.K. New York-listed Brookfield, which manages about $1.2 trillion, indicated that it had brought in over $900.4 million for the latest fund from 18 investors.

Independent investment firm Eighteen48 Partners has banked an initial €175 million, or $204 million, in a first closing of Eighteen48 Private Equity Fund I, bringing the fund roughly halfway to its €350 million target. The fund focuses on investments in European middle-market buyout deals sourced by independent sponsors.

Hedge fund manager Lansdowne Partners is raising a venture investment vehicle targeting British startups and has held a first close with $150 million. The London firm expects to exceed its final $200 million goal by December.

Vista Equity Partners has set up an office in Abu Dhabi, led by Vignesh Vijayakumar as senior executive director. The office gives the technology investor its first  location in the Middle East, where it has relationships with regional investors and sovereign wealth funds.

Private credit investing has drawn the attention of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which plans to explore rulemaking around disclosures by fund managers in the market, Mark Maurer reports for the Journal, noting that the FASB added a process for potential standard-setting to its agenda. The goal is to help investors get a better understanding of fund investments and their valuations.

Natural-gas company Caturus, a portfolio company of Kimmeridge Energy Management, has reached a final investment decision for its liquefied natural gas project, Commonwealth LNG, in Cameron Parish, La., marking the beginning of full construction, according to an emailed news release. Caturus secured $9.75 billion in financing for the LNG project, which is expected to come online in 2030 with an annual capacity of 9.5 million metric tons. The company is also backed by the energy arm of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign-wealth fund Mubadala Investment and Canadian pension manager CPP Investments.

Private-equity firm 3i Group's shares plunged in London after it reported a slowdown in sales growth and weaker profitability at retailer Action, which accounts for the bulk of the group’s portfolio value, Adrià Calatayud reports for the Journal. The shares tumbled as much as 25% in European trading Thursday before rebounding. Discount retailer Action’s sales growth slowed this year as war in the Middle East and unfavorable weather affected some markets.

Barings and its corporate parent Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. have sold an 18% stake in the asset manager to MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings, which invested through its Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co. unit. The deal puts additional capital and assets under management by Charlotte, N.C.-based Barings. Springfield, Mass.-based MassMutual retains an 82% stake in Barings, which manages about $481 billion.

Bain Capital- and Founders Fund-backed software developer Cognition is expanding across Asia, looking to plug a "software deficit" with an automation tool it bets can lead to more hiring, not less, Kimberley Kao reports for the Journal. The artificial-intelligence startup in San Francisco, valued at over $10 billion in a growth investment round in September, is active in one of the most competitive segments of the generative AI market: software coding.

Singapore wealth investor Temasek is joining with BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners arm and Abu Dhabi sovereign fund L’imad in a partnership formed to invest as much as $30 billion across the Persian Gulf region and Central Asia, according to Reuters and multiple other reports citing a joint statement from the group. The partnership aims to invest in energy, transportation and logistics infrastructure.

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