Welcome back. I hit a home run at the company softball game Monday, extending our lead over NBC News and letting me relive a little high school glory. Our team performed well, winning the game  with a 25-4 score. More than the win itself, it was great to connect with newsroom colleagues with whom I don't often get to cross paths.

In the news today, assets stuck in zombie funds at least 10 years old have climbed to a record $348.5 billion, Mark Maurer writes for the Journal.

In China, artificial-intelligence developers are looking for capital, through IPOs or financing deals, to keep pace with U.S. competitors.

Also, the Journal's Heather Gillers reports that during the four years it took insurance regulators to generate guardrails, insurers have found new ways to invest in structured credit that skirt the new rules. 

Now on to the news...

A record level of private-equity investments are stuck in funds limping along past their intended lifespans, Mark Maurer writes for the Journal. Often known as zombie funds, these funds are no longer raising money or making new acquisitions, in part because fund managers haven’t been able to sell their remaining assets. The net asset value of U.S. private-equity assets stuck in funds at least a decade old reached an all-time high of $348.5 billion at the end of 2025, according to PitchBook data. The slowdown in private-equity sales has fueled frustration among investors eager to cash out.

Chinese artificial-intelligence developers are racing​ to raise money through share offerings or loans, believing they need a bigger war chest to keep up with U.S. competitors, WSJ reports. At least six startups that develop AI models are preparing for initial public offerings in Shanghai or Hong Kong through 2027. They are joined by China’s two largest memory-chip makers and three humanoid-robot developers. For investors, including those outside China, the IPOs are a potential once-in-a-generation opportunity to get a piece of companies that could be leaders of the AI era.

Insurers stay a step ahead of state regulators when it comes to investing in structured debt markets, Heather Gillers reports for the Journal. In the four years it took insurance regulators to generate rules protecting policyholders against big losses on a $314 billion slice of the market, insurers found new ways to invest that skirted the new guardrails. The evolution illustrates a big reason Wall Street’s private-equity titans such as Apollo Global Management and KKR & Co. have flocked to the life-insurance business in the first place: Unlike the bank regulators, the state commissioners that oversee insurers didn’t overhaul their capital rules in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis.

Hedgefunder John Henry's Fenway Sports Group is in talks to sell a minority stake in Britain’s Liverpool Football Club, one of the top-tier, professional soccer teams in the English Premier League, Ben Dummett reports for the Journal. A group led by Mittal family investor Amit Bhatia expressed interest in buying a “strategic minority" stake in Liverpool, FSG said. The Mittal family, which owns more than 40% of steel conglomerate ArcelorMittal, is also behind the potential bid, according to people familiar with the matter. A deal could value the club at between $6 billion and $7 billion, one of the people familiar said. 

Clayton, Dubilier & Rice-backed OCS Group, a facilities maintenance services provider in Europe, has agreed to acquire London-listed building-management-outsourcing company Mitie Group for as much as £3.1 billion, or $4.16 billion, including a final dividend to shareholders, Adam Whittaker reports for the Journal. OCS has agreed to pay a nearly 45% premium to Monday's closing price for Mikie shares, prompting a surge in the stock Tuesday. The New York buyout firm has backed OCS since 2022, according to research provider PitchBook.

A consortium backed by BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners, the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership and Mubadala-backed MGX has acquired Aligned Data Centers from Macquarie Group's asset-management arm at a roughly $40 billion enterprise value. Aligned has more than 50 data-center operations and development sites. The buyers were expected to pay about $20 billion for the company when the deal was disclosed last year.

Atreides Management and Sutter Hill Ventures led a $300 million growth investment in battery technology developer Sila, joined by others including Matrix Partners. The company's Moses Lake, Wash., factory is focused on producing silicon-carbon batteries as a substitute for graphite to reduce weight and shorten charging time.

Tiger Global Management led a $180 million growth investment in clearing bank operator Augustus International at a $1 billion valuation. The financial technology company formerly known as Ivy has set up a system to process transactions based on the stablecoin digital currency that provide access to dollar accounts.

Specialist asset manager ITE Management has acquired North American Chassis Pool Cooperative, a provider of chassis serving major intermodal markets across North America. The acquisition will serve to further the scaling of its premium North American chassis platform to more than 60,000 assets with national scale and broad market coverage for intermodal customers.

The growth-investment strategy of Falfurrias Management Partners in Charlotte, N.C., is backing industrial project-planning software maker FactorLab. The Pleasanton, Calif.-based company applies artificial intelligence to help anticipate issues that may arise in complex work in the construction, utilities, energy and industrial markets.

Bridgepoint Group and asset-based financing firm AIP Capital are extending their partnership by acquiring a collection of 11 LEAP 1B jet engines from GE Aerospace-backed CFM International to lease to carriers and aircraft service providers. Such engines can cost from $15 million to $18 million each, according to charter flight operator Safe Fly Aviation in India. London-listed Bridgepoint and AIP didn't say how much they will pay for the engines. They expect to begin receiving the delivery from CFM, which is also backed by Safran Aircraft Engines, starting next year.

Lower midmarket investor Crest Rock Partners in Denver has made a strategic investment in public works contractor Andrew Site Work. The Fort Myers, Fla.-based company mainly engages with clients in southwest Florida and is looking to expand.

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

The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and KKR & Co. are selling an 80% stake in Caruna Group, Finland's main electricity distributor, to strategic buyer Iberdrola in Spain for €2.01 billion, or $2.29 billion, Joshua Kirby reports for Dow Jones Newswires. The pension system and the buyout firm first backed Caruna in 2021 and hold their current interests through a Dutch entity that they control. Iberdrola is investing in Caruna at an enterprise value of about €5 billion.

CapVest Partners has acquired a majority stake in energy infrastructure services provider TSG Solutions from investment firm HLD Group, which is retaining a minority interest. The Paris-based company generates more than €1.4 billion in annual revenue, or roughly $1.6 billion, and has over 7,000 employees. HLD has backed the business since 2020.

General Atlantic-backed secondary investor Clipway in London has raised about $6.4 billion for its Clipway Secondary Fund I, which the firm has closed with more than twice the capital it initially targeted for its debut fund in the strategy. Ex-Ardian executives Vincent Gombault, Ingmar Vallano and Benoît Verbrugghe lead the firm, which is also backed by Mubadala and French asset manager Carmignac. Clipway invests in private-equity and growth funds managed by firms in Western Europe and the U.S.

Real-assets secondaries specialist Townsend Holdings, which is backed by Riverside Cos., has amassed more than $2 billion so far for its latest capital drive to fuel its strategy of providing liquidity to property holders, including through parallel vehicles and co-investment funds. The Cleveland-based firm, with assets under management of more than $19.64 billion at the end of September, is aiming to raise $3 billion for the latest vintage in the strategy.

TruArc Partners has closed its fifth fund with $1.2 billion in capital commitments, above its $1.1 billion target for TruArc Partners Fund V. The midmarket firm focuses on business services and specialty manufacturing. It raised $840.1 million for a predecessor vehicle.

Growth-equity firm Avenue Growth Partners closed its second fund, Avenue Growth Partners Fund II, with $155 million. The fund, which follows Avenue’s $83 million debut fund, was significantly oversubscribed and closed at its hard cap.

Buyout firm KKR & Co. in New York has named Roy Gori, a former Manulife Financial president and chief executive, as a senior adviser on insurance and financial services, focusing on the Asia-Pacific region and other international markets. He led Toronto-based Manulife from 2017 until retiring last year.

Trivest Partners announced a series of promotions including elevating Tarek Mohamed to principal within the firm’s middle-market fund investment team. Mohamed joined Trivest in 2022 after leaving Tygon Peak Capital.

Manufacturing- and industrial-focused Angeles Equity Partners has added Kyle Huffman as a vice president, finance with its Angeles operations group. He was previously with Elauwit Connection.

Delaware Life Insurance, ultimately controlled by Guggenheim Partners Chief Executive Mark Walter, has received subpoenas from the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the insurer's treatment of credit investments, according to a financial filing with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. The subpoenas came in connection with an investigation by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan and a parallel probe by the SEC, according to credit ratings provider S&P Global Ratings. S&P said the subpoenas prompted an internal review at Delaware, which is controlled by TWG Global, where Walter is also CEO. The insurer subsequently reclassified some of its credit investments, with the change boosting the affiliated investments portion of its holdings to 42% from 3%, said S&P, which changed its outlook on the insurer to negative last week. Bloomberg News and the Financial Times previously reported on the filings. Walter, alongside technology investor Thomas Tull and Abu Dhabi's Mubadala, has also used TWG Global to put money into other enterprises, such as Cadillac's F1 effort and western rodeos.

The private secondary market is headed for its third-straight record year, a report from investment bank Evercore indicates. Global transaction values rose 19% in this year's first half to a record $121 billion, with general partner-led deals rising to $65 billion, driven by single-asset continuation funds. Secondary deals totaled $226 billion for all of last year, after reaching $102 billion in the first six months.

The value of growth investments and venture-capital deals more than doubled to $463.17 billion in this year's first half from the same period last year, even though the number of transactions declined 6%, according to research provider S&P Global Market Intelligence. Investments in developers of artificial-intelligence technology dominated the most recent period, including a $12 billion round backing Project Prometheus in June.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings have accelerated for four straight years, according to a report from Marblegate and RapidRatings. Last year set a record and 2026 filings have risen 42% compared with the same period of 2025 among companies with liabilities between $100 million and $1 billion.

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