news

News (w/e/ 01/30/26)

Lee McCabe

03 Feb 2026 — 1 min read

Blackstone Reports Record Private Equity, Credit, and Real Estate Inflows in 2025

Blackstone disclosed its largest ever private market fundraising year, with more than $240 billion raised in 2025 and assets under management climbing to about $1.3 trillion. Despite strong underlying performance in private equity, private credit, and real estate, the firm’s stock has lagged broader markets, highlighting a disconnect between fund results and public sentiment toward alternative asset managers. Link

Harvest Partners-Backed Affordable Care Hires Turnaround Adviser Amid Stress

Affordable Care LLC, a major dental-service roll-up backed by Harvest Partners, has engaged AlixPartners to steer a financial turnaround amid debt pressure. The company’s struggles underscore rising distress in healthcare platforms that were heavily levered and built on consolidating non-clinical support services, an area where consumer spending softness exposes structural risk. Link

Four More States Propose Bans on Private-Equity Influence in U.S. Healthcare

Lawmakers in Washington, New Mexico, Vermont, and Maine introduced bills this week aimed at curbing private equity’s involvement in clinical decision-making and healthcare practice ownership. These proposals extend a growing regulatory trend initiated in California and Oregon, signaling mounting political headwinds for PE’s healthcare playbook and potential constraints on how sponsors structure acquisitions. Link

CVC to Buy U.S. Credit Manager Marathon in $1.6B Deal

CVC Capital Partners agreed to acquire New York–based credit manager Marathon Asset Management for up to $1.6 billion, including earnouts tied to future performance. The acquisition extends CVC’s push into U.S. private credit, a fast-growing segment of private markets, and reflects ongoing consolidation among asset managers as fundraising slows and firms seek scale across credit and alternatives. Link

Carlyle Agrees to Buy Lukoil’s International Assets After Sanctions Pressure

The Carlyle Group reached an initial agreement to acquire most of Lukoil’s international assets being divested under U.S. sanctions, marking one of the more geopolitical-charged PE plays in recent memory. The deal remains subject to regulatory clearance from the U.S. Treasury and Office of Foreign Assets Control, but it highlights how private equity may increasingly operate at the intersection of global politics and capital deployment. Link

Lifestyle (w/e 2/19/26)

Vox on the rise of “admin nights” — friends hanging out while doing life chores (budgeting, emails, meal prep), i.e., the new nightlife for people with calendars and back-to-back calls. link Reuters on “sober raves” taking off with Gen Z — earlier nights, no hangovers, still a proper dance floor. link

News (2/19/26)

McKinsey Declares “The Fog Has Lifted” on Private Equity McKinsey’s 2026 Global Private Markets Report says the fog has finally lifted, with buyouts up, exits rebounding, and IPOs creeping back after three flat years. That may be true, but the backlog of PE-owned companies is at record highs and

Deals (w/e 2/19/26)

Ariel Alternatives Acquires Front Line Power Construction Ariel Alternatives has acquired Front Line Power Construction, with Cherokee Nation Businesses joining as a minority co-investor. Power grid infrastructure is no longer theoretical. It’s cables, substations, and hard backlog tied to AI data centers and electrification mandates. This isn’t energy-transition

Capital doesn’t scale businesses. It scales whatever dysfunction is already there.

You see this constantly in home services and other PE-backed, multi-location businesses. New locations are added faster than systems mature. Marketing budgets increase, but lead quality becomes harder to explain. Revenue targets go up, while visibility into what’s actually driving demand goes down. On paper, the business is scaling.