It’s Friday! In this morning’s newsletter, Chris Cumming delves into a lawsuit filed on behalf of creditors of a bankrupt company that was backed by Cornell Capital over a dividend recapitalization that the private-equity firm inked before the company went bankrupt.

Meanwhile, our own Rod James reports investor insights from the recent SuperReturn North America conference that took place earlier this week. Rod was one of several WSJ Pro Private Equity reporters on the scene at the conference gathering intelligence from industry thought leaders, one of whom cautions investors against betting too heavily on lower inflation or continued interest rate cuts.

Have a pleasant weekend! Now onto the news…

A trustee for Instant Brands’ creditors accused private-equity firm Cornell Capital of looting the bankrupt kitchen-appliance maker through a dividend recapitalization, driving it into insolvency and costing its lenders millions of dollars, Chris Cumming reports for WSJ Pro. On Wednesday, Alan Halperin, appointed by a Texas bankruptcy court to recover money for creditors, sued the New York private-equity firm and more than 20 co-defendants, alleging they concealed information from Instant Brands’ lenders and falsified financial records to obtain a $450 million loan in 2021.

Investors are likely underestimating the impact of a new Trump administration on inflation and the direction of interest rates, according to the chief investment officer who oversees more than $285 billion of New York City pension assets. As Rod James writes for WSJ Pro, Steven Meier also cautioned during a recent panel at SuperReturn North America conference that the market may be overestimating the level of future Fed rate cuts.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler is on the way out, which could mean the end of some of the commission’s signature agenda items under President Biden.

Venture-capital firms and mature startups are seeking liquidity by selling to private equity, even though the rewards often aren’t nearly as dazzling as in a public offering.

Data-rich companies such as Bayer are working with Microsoft to develop industry-specific gen AI models—and then licensing them to others.

Alimentation Couche-Tard’s blockbuster bid to acquire 7-Eleven has suddenly gotten more complicated and expensive, Adriano Marchese reports for The Wall Street Journal. The son of the founder of 7-Eleven on Wednesday submitted a bid to take Seven & i, the parent of the global convenience-store chain, private. The company didn’t provide details on the offer, which a special committee is reviewing. Bloomberg News reported that it would be worth around ¥9 trillion, or about $58 billion, around 23% higher than Couche-Tard’s latest offer. Analysts view the move as a way to pressure Couche-Tard into either raising its offer, or discourage the Canadian convenience-store conglomerate from continuing its pursuit.

Private investment firms Quantum Capital Group and Kayne Anderson are partnering with oil-and-gas company FourPoint Resources on an agreement to acquire assets in the Uinta Basin from publicly traded Ovintiv for $2 billion. The assets include 126,000 net acres and production of 29 thousand barrels a day. FourPoint Resources is managed and operated by FourPoint Energy, which Quantum backed in 2017.

Washington Harbour Partners in Arlington, Va., joined a $100 million growth investment round for nuclear energy company Radiant Industries, a deal led by DCVC and which also included others such as Union Square Ventures and Felicis. The El Segundo, Calif.-based company is developing small-scale reactors designed to power data centers.

Growth investor 1315 Capital, a Philadelphia-based firm focused on healthcare, has acquired SciSafe in a corporate carveout from BioLife Solutions. SciSafe provides specialized storage and cold-chain-management solutions for biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical companies.

Comvest Partners in West Palm Beach, Fla., is providing $50 million in financing to commuter airline operator Surf Air Mobility, including a $44.5 million term loan that has been funded and $5.5 million in a delayed draw loan to cover interest over the first 18 months. The Los Angeles company operates passenger planes including Cessna Caravan aircraft and is developing electric propulsion systems for aeronautical use.

Argyle Capital Partners in Toronto is backing International Custom Products, a Scarborough, Ontario, manufacturer of parachutes, tents, uniforms and other products mainly for the aerospace and defense sectors. Argyle said Thursday that it invested in the business in September.

STG Partners said that its lower-midmarket-focused strategy STG Allegro has backed TaxCalc, a provider of tax compliance and practice-management software for U.K. accounting firms. STG raised more than $860 million for its first STG Allegro fund back in 2021.

Technology-focused investor GiantLeap Capital in New York is joining existing backer AE Industrial Partners in a $175 million growth investment in space services provider Firefly Aerospace, a deal led by RPM Ventures. The transaction values the Cedar Park, Texas-based company at more than $2 billion. AE Industrial has backed the developer of launch and orbital vehicles since March 2022.

Existing backer Sequoia Capital led a €25 million, or $26.4 million, growth investment in travel company Tourlane, joined by new investor Target Global as well as HV Capital, which first invested in the Berlin-based business in 2017, according to industry researcher PitchBook Data. The company said the fresh capital will finance product development and market expansion. Sequoia has backed the travel planning business since leading an earlier growth investment in December 2018.

Wavecrest Growth Partners led a $23 million growth investment in payments company Trolley Technologies, joined by existing investor Pace Capital. The Toronto-based payments processing systems developer aims to accelerate product refinements and expand its market with the new money.

Carbyne Equity Partners in Hamburg, Germany, led a $48 million growth investment in agricultural biotechnology company Elicit Plant, joined by other investors including Sofinnova Partners. The Boston-based company is developing biotech products to reduce the water consumption of crops such as corn by as much as 20%.

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

European private-equity firm NXMH is selling the North American cat food and dog treats businesses of Whitebridge Pet Brands, including two plants in Joplin, Mo., to strategic buyer General Mills in a deal worth $1.45 billion, Ben Glickman writes for the Journal. NXMH is selling Whitebridge’s Tiki Pets food brand and Cloud Star treats, which generated U.S. sales of about $325 million in the past 12 months. The firm, which acquired Whitebridge in 2021, will retain the business and its brands in Europe.

Growth investor Fronttrail Equity Partners in Switzerland is selling financial technology company Aixigo to asset-management giant Amundi in a deal with a net value of about €149 million, or $157.4 million. The company is used by banks and asset managers to provide ways for savers to manage their wealth. Amundi, with assets of around €2.2 trillion, plans to work the company’s products into its own offerings. Fronttrail has owned a stake in the company since at least 2019.

OrbiMed Advisors is seeking $1.75 billion for OrbiMed Royalty & Credit Opportunities V and related parallel vehicles, according to a regulatory filing. The new fund’s offering amount is slightly higher than the $1.71 billion that the firm raised for its predecessor. OrbiMed invests its royalty and credit opportunities funds in structured debt financing for commercial-stage healthcare companies as well as royalty financing deals for such companies.

WaterEquity, an asset manager that backs investments in water and sanitation improvement in emerging markets, said it has raised more than $100 million for its Water & Climate Resilience Fund. Microsoft served as an anchor investor in the vehicle through its own Climate Innovation Fund. Other fund backers include Starbucks, Xylem, Ecolab, Reckitt and Gap.

Welsh, Carson Anderson & Stowe said it has named four new general partners: Caroline Dechert, Jennifer Ding, Ting Gu and Sidney Ouyang. Dechert and Gu focus on healthcare deals and have been with the firm since 2012 and 2013, respectively. Ding, who joined Welsh Carson in 2020, and Ouyang, who joined in 2015, both focus on technology investments.

Petershill Partners sold part of its stake in private-equity firm Accel-KKR for $282 million, enabling it to declare a special dividend of $189 million, Dow Jones Newswires’ Christian Moess Laursen writes. Petershill initially acquired a less than 10% stake in Menlo Park, Calif.-based Accel-KKR in 2017 after years of investing in the firm’s funds. At the time, technology-focused Accel-KKR managed more than $4.3 billion in assets. By the end of last year, the firm’s assets had risen to more than $19 billion, according to a March 2024 registered investment adviser filing.

Global placement agent and advisory firm Campbell Lutyens said it is opening a new office in the United Arab Emirates in the Dubai International Financial Centre to support the firm’s primary and secondary advisory efforts, as well as its GP capital advisory business. Phiras Soubra, a managing director and senior executive officer who joined Campbell Lutyens in 2022, will lead the new office. Tala Itani is joining the office as a vice president after working for more than 17 years in the UAE prime minister’s office.

CVC Capital Partners said Thursday that its fee-paying assets under management rose about 27% to €144.1 billion, or roughly $152.23 billion, by the end of September from €113.5 billion a year earlier, Najat Kantouar reports for Dow Jones Newswires. CVC said total assets under management came to €191 billion at the end of the third quarter. CVC’s Amsterdam-listed shares ended Thursday little changed at €21.02.

Business development companies Blue Owl Technology Finance Corp. and Blue Owl Technology Finance Corp. II have agreed to merge, with the former continuing as the surviving company. The merger would be expected to bring the combined BDCs' assets on a pro-forma to $15.8 billion as of September 2024. Both BDCs are managed by the same Blue Owl Capital team and both targeted debt financing for the software industry, resulting in considerable overlap between the two BDCs portfolios.

Private-equity firms that focus on the U.S. oil patch increasingly favor regions such as the Rocky Mountains to make new investments as oil fields across the popular Permian Basin in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico become more concentrated in the hands of large energy companies, WSJ Pro’s Luis Garcia reports, citing Andrew Dittmar, a principal analyst at Enverus Intelligence Research. Oil-and-gas producer FourPoint Resources and private-equity firms Quantum Capital and Kayne Anderson provided an example Thursday, saying they are buying oil producer Ovintiv's Uinta Basin assets in Colorado and Utah for $2 billion.

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