Welcome back. It’s always a bit amusing to watch the annual struggle of Dry January. Having never had an alcoholic drink in my life, I view the month less as a test of willpower and more as a natural state of play. In many ways, it’s an unfair advantage, not unlike asset managers with proven track records when it comes to fundraising.  

Today, our Luis Garcia shares news of Westwood's success in raising $300 million to buy secondhand stakes in aging private-equity funds invested in oil and gas assets.

Also, our Chris Cumming reports on hedge fund manager Mason Capital accusing Kirkland & Ellis of conflicts of interest in its work on a lawsuit pitting Energy & Minerals Group against the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, an investor in an EMG fund.

Finally, the Journal details a Pentagon investment in the missile business of L3Harris Technologies. 

Now onto the news...

Westwood Holdings Group has raised $300 million to buy stakes in private-equity funds invested in oil and gas assets, seeking to capitalize on investor desire to cash out energy bets that have overstayed their welcome, WSJ Pro's Luis Garcia reports. The publicly traded asset-manager collected $174 million for Westwood Energy Secondaries Fund II and an additional $126 million for two parallel co-investment vehicles, or twice a $150 million initial goal for the strategy, said Greg Reid, president of real assets and a senior portfolio manager with the firm.

A hedge fund accused Kirkland & Ellis of conflicts of interest in its work on a high-profile lawsuit pitting private-equity firm Energy & Minerals Group against one of its fund investors, WSJ Pro's Chris Cumming reports. Asset manager Mason Capital Management on Monday said the law firm was providing “conflicted legal advice” in the dispute between the Abu Dhabi Investment Council and the Houston private-equity firm. In December, the Mideast sovereign-wealth fund accused Energy & Minerals of trying to profit at its investors’ expense through a proposed continuation-fund transaction for U.S. natural-gas company Ascent Resources.

The Pentagon said it would invest $1 billion in L3Harris Technologies’ missile business to turbocharge production of weapons that officials want on hand for future conflicts, the Journal reports. The defense contractor said Tuesday it plans to spin off the missile segment into a separate publicly traded company, backed by the Pentagon’s minority investment. The stand-alone business would focus on making rocket parts for the U.S. and its allies, including those for Patriot, Thaad and Tomahawk missiles. The news comes only about a week after private-equity firm AE Industrial Partners said it would acquire a majority stake in L3Harris’s Aerojet Rocketdyne product lines business.

Investment firm B Capital led a roughly $175 million growth commitment to aircraft developer JetZero, joined by strategic backers and venture investors. The Long Beach, Calif.-based company plans an inaugural flight for its all-wing airplane prototype in 2027 and aims to enter commercial service in the early 2030s.

Blackstone is backing Stop & Shop supermarket operator Ahold Delhaize USA with a $475 million commitment to back a triple net lease transaction centered on building an automated grocery distribution center in Burlington, N.C. Blackstone Credit & Insurance will own the property and finance construction costs while Ahold Delhaize, which runs five major supermarket chains, will take a long-term lease on the facility, with an option to buy it later.

Insight Partners and General Catalyst increased their commitments to software developer Onebrief as part of a $200 million growth investment led by existing backer Battery Ventures and Sapphire Ventures. The deal gave the Honolulu, Hawaii, company a value of over $2 billion. The fresh capital is being used in part to finance the defense contractor's acquisition of Battle Road Digital, which applies gaming technology to military uses.

Atlantic Vantage Point Capital in Paris led a $130 million growth investment in application programming interface provider Deepgram. The San Francisco-based company specializes in providing API's for app developers using artificial intelligence for real-time voice services. Joining AVP, as the firm is known, were existing investors such as BlackRock. The deal valued the company at $1.3 billion.

Investindustrial has acquired Proveris Scientific, a manufacturer of spray and aerosol testing instrumentation for the pharmaceutical industry, investing through the firm's Investindustrial Growth III fund. Investindustrial aims to drive expansion of the company and build a leading pharmaceutical testing equipment group in its existing markets and in adjacent categories.

Bain Capital in Boston is backing online specialty school American College of Education with a growth commitment from the firm's Double Impact strategy. The school offers adult training in fields such as nursing, business and teaching. Law firm Ropes & Gray advised the firm on the deal.

An investment group led by Wavecrest Growth Partners and Radian Capital have acquired specialty software developer Dealerware. The company's applications are used in automotive dealership operations.

Healthcare-focused Sheridan Capital Partners is backing software company ICANotes, whose applications are designed for behavioral and mental health providers to streamline documentation and compliance. The Baltimore-based company aims to expand with Sheridan's support.

Midmarket-focused Morgan Stanley Capital Partners has acquired a majority stake in engineering and design company Olsson, with employees of the business re-investing alongside the private-equity arm of investment bank Morgan Stanley. The employee-owned company based in Lincoln, Neb., has over 2,000 employees in 35 offices and specializes in infrastructure engineering and design.

Infrastructure-focused asset manager Infranity, backed by insurer Generali Group, is providing $300 million in debt financing to power producer CleanCapital Holdings to fuel its expansion as a distributed energy supplier from U.S. solar and energy storage assets. Over the past year, the New York-based company has acquired over 100 solar and battery storage projects

Growth investor L2 Point Management in San Francisco led a $70 million investment in data storage provider Wasabi Technologies, joined by existing backers such as Fidelity Management & Research. The deal valued Boston-based Wasabi at about $1.8 billion.

Apis & Heritage Capital Partners has added janitorial services provider B and B Maintenance to its collection of businesses transitioning to employee ownership. Based in Lake Zurich, Ill., B and B has over 1,100 full-time workers spread across 20 states.

Water Street Healthcare Partners has invested in Pillr Health, a software and technology-enabled services company that helps hospitals and health systems optimize and streamline their pharmacy operations, according to an emailed news release. Chief Executive Skip Devanny will continue to lead Pillr Health alongside the company’s management team.

Control investor TRM Equity in Southfield, Mich., has acquired Browntown Foundry and Iron Mountain Foundry assets in Wisconsin and Michigan, respectively, from Grede Holdings and combined the operations into one provider of iron castings weighing up to a half-ton. The foundries serve markets including agriculture, construction and automotive manufacturing.

Specialist investor J.F. Lehman & Co. has acquired a majority interest in Wellman Dynamics from TRM Equity, which remains a minority backer of the business. Based in Creston, Iowa, Wellman provides magnesium and aluminum sand castings to aerospace and defense manufacturers.

Bain Capital led a $136 million growth investment in software services company Defense Unicorns, which provides government agencies and the U.S. military with ways to update programs embedded in remote equipment such as ships and aircraft. The deal also included Ansa Capital and Valor Equity Partners, among others, and valued the company at over $1 billion.

Multi-strategy private-equity firm TPG is supplying about $1 billion through a forward-flow agreement with equipment finance company Elevex Capital, giving the company resources to expand its originations and fund larger transactions. The Westlake, Ohio-based company is backed by Sallyport Investments, a growth investor in Houston.

Private-equity firm TJC in New York has backed an additional follow-on investment in GrowthLoop, a provider of agentic-AI powered marketing technology and services. TJC originally backed GrowthLoop in 2022. The firm managed assets of about $30.9 billion at the end of September.

Inflexion has embarked on a buy-and-build strategy with its purchase of insurance provider Ascend Broking Group, with a person familiar with the matter saying the buyout firm plans to invest as much as £200 million, or about $268.5 million, in the effort, Sebastian McCarthy reports for sister publication Private Equity News in London. The mid-market firm plans to make Ascend the first of several broker acquisitions, with plans to build between four and six “regional broking powerhouse hubs” across the U.K.

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

Main Street Capital in Houston has sold storage tank manufacturer KBK Industries to an unnamed strategic buyer. Main Street realized a $17.3 million gain from the sale of the Rush Center, Kan., company, which the firm first backed in 2006. The firm also collected about $25.1 million in dividends from its investment over the past two decades, generating a return of around 3.5 times its investment.

Blackstone-backed Liftoff Mobile has filed for an initial public offering of shares without saying how much it expects to raise. The Redwood City, Calif.-based provider of marketing and other services to mobile device apps producers is also backed by General Atlantic as a significant shareholder but said in the filing that Blackstone would remain its controlling shareholder following the IPO. The company also didn't specify a target date for the offering.

TruArc Partners has bought commercial landscaping company Schill Grounds Management from fellow private investment firm Argonne Capital Group. Argonne initially acquired a majority stake in the Cleveland-based company back in 2020.

Juggernaut Capital Partners has sold snacks brand Go Raw to family office USK Capital. Juggernaut acquired the brand in 2017.

Coller Capital has collected $17 billion to back global secondary deals, including through a final closing of its latest commingled fund Coller International Partners IX, Sebastian McCarthy writes for sister publication Private Equity News in London. Investors that have disclosed commitments to Fund IX include the California State University Foundation, Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association, the Louisiana State Employees’ Retirement System, the New Jersey Division of Investment and Fubon Life Insurance. Coller has already deployed about 70% of the fund’s capital across both fund portfolio acquisitions and general partner-led transactions.

Bain Capital came up shy of its $3.75 billion target for its latest property investment pool, Bain Capital Real Estate Fund III, closing on about $3.4 billion for the strategy, including around $300 million from firm executives as well as alumni. The Boston firm's new fund still surpassed its predecessor, which closed on roughly $3 billion in late 2021. Bain Capital had been marketing the latest fund since at least June 2023, a regulatory filing indicates.

Blackstone has rounded up at least $5.9 billion so far for opportunistic private credit fund, Blackstone Capital Opportunities Fund V and related parallel vehicles, regulatory filings show. Investors that have disclosed commitments to the fund include the Texas Municipal Retirement System, the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, the State of Michigan Retirement System, the New York State Common Retirement Fund and the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana, according to WSJ Pro’s LP Commitments database. Blackstone closed the fund’s predecessor in 2022 and at the time said that with the final close of Blackstone Capital Opportunities IV, the firm had $8.75 billion in capital available for its opportunistic private debt strategy.

Garnett Station Partners has promoted Yasir Bari to partner and head of credit investments at the firm. The New York-based firm also elevated Rafi Haramati to managing director, Bradley Ezratty, Max Hoberman and Madeline Zeiss to principal level as well as Teddy Sokoloff to vice president.

Middle market firm Bertram Capital in Foster City, Calif., has promoted Chris Brown to partner. Brown rejoined the firm in 2019, having previously worked for Bertram from 2010 through 2015.

Jens Brenninkmeyer has been elevated to chief executive of Bregal Investments in Switzerland, moving up from chief strategy officer. He joined the firm in 2023. Bregal manages over €19 billion, or roughly $22.17 billion.

Midmarket firm Lovell Minnick Partners has promoted Scott Shebelsky to partner, Alex Lovell to principal and Roumi Zlateva to principal and head of capital markets.

Periscope Equity in Chicago has promoted Luke Elder to principal and Harry Waddoups to vice president. Both men joined the firm in 2022.

Lower midmarket investor O2 Investment Partners has moved up Thomas Girdler to vice president. He joined the Bloomfield Hills, Mich., firm in 2024, according to his LinkedIn page.

Midmarket investor GHK Capital Partners in Greenwich, Conn., has made a clutch of promotions, including elevating John Luke and Lucas Viola to principal. Both joined the firm in 2020.

HighPost Capital, a private investment firm formed by David Moross and Mark Bezos, is elevating David Weston to senior managing director at the firm. Weston joined midmarket focused HighPost in 2023 and led the firm’s investments in Front Row Group and Equip Foods.

Politicians are zeroing in on the high costs of home buying. So are venture investors. Technology focused on affordability – such as rent-to-own and shared-equity models – is top of mind for investors, as Yuliya Chernova writes for WSJ Pro.

Midmarket businesses in the U.S. saw a rapid decline in earnings growth in the first two months of 2025's fourth quarter as revenue also slowed, according to the Golub Capital Altman Index. The credit provider said earnings growth at the 110 to 150 privately owned companies it tracks dropped to 3% year-over-year from a 9% rate for the same period a year earlier, while revenue expansion fell to a 2% rate from 6%.

Invesco is selling the management agreements on its Canadian mutual fund business to Mubadala-backed investment management firm CI Global Asset Management, Robb M. Stewart reports for Dow Jones Newswires. The agreements cover funds totaling about 26 billion Canadian dollars, the equivalent of $18.7 billion. CI Global, the asset management arm of Toronto-based CI Financial, will become manager of 100 mutual funds and exchange-traded funds currently offered by Invesco Canada. Mubadala took CI private last year.

Ares Management is expanding its partnership with energy company Engie North America, adding a wind-energy project and two based on solar power with combined peak capacity of about 730 megawatts serving the Ercot Texas power grid. Engie retained a controlling share and continues to operate the added assets.

BlackRock is cutting around 250 jobs in a move affecting around 1% of its global workforce, David Ricketts reports for sister publication Financial News in London. The latest reductions follow two rounds of job cuts last year and affect investment and distribution professionals.

Blackstone funds are being added to Deutsche Börse Group’s Clearstream post-trading services system, opening access to the vehicles for qualified individual investors. Clearstream works with over 300 other fund managers as a gateway used by wealth advisers.

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

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