U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer stated that the proposed rule aims to fulfill President Trump's promise for a new golden age by fostering a retirement system that allows more Americans to retire with dignity.
"I'm surprised by how neutral the rule was, when you think about the massive amount of lobbying there's been around it. It doesn't say certain assets are good or bad. Instead, it really focuses on making a rules-based framework instead of a litigation-based one."
Few founders get to revisit the decisions they made when they first scaled their company the way Jaclyn Johnson did. Johnson bootstrapped Create & Cultivate from a side project in 2012 into a multi-million-dollar media and events platform for ambitious women, then sold a majority stake to private equity in 2021 in a deal valued at about $22 million. Three years later, after watching the company struggle under new ownership, she did something far rarer: She bought it back.
"You had all these geopolitical tensions, and you had this flight to quality with private equity," said Lawson, HGGC's chief executive officer. "The opportunity set for many investors has shifted to what we call mid-cap or middle-market businesses."
Private equity giant Carlyle has thrown a £150m lifeline to online retailer Very - just as mounting debt threatens to sink the company. Sources say the refinancing deal will keep Very afloat, giving breathing space to a business grappling with sky-high borrowing costs, fierce competition, and a cash-strapped consumer market. An insider commented: "Without this deal, Very could have faced serious trouble. Carlyle is betting big to save its investment - the stakes couldn't be higher."
Blackstone and co-investors, including Teachers' Venture Growth, TVS Capital, 360 ONE Assets, and Nexus Venture Partners, have agreed to invest up to $600 million of primary equity in Neysa, giving Blackstone a majority stake, Blackstone and Neysa told TechCrunch. The Mumbai-headquartered startup also plans to raise an additional $600 million in debt financing as it expands GPU capacity, a sharp increase from the $50 million it had raised previously.
New research from BusinessesForSale.com states that big companies may buy multiple shops that have the potential to be financially profitable. And in some cases, they may be willing to invest in one established shop. These buyers include private equity firms, and these groups may be seeking to improve shops through operational overhauls. Often, private equity firms are aiming to see high rental income and shop growth within a set timeframe. They'll look for business sales in the UK that can meet their financial goals.
The cupcake boom, a twenty-year dessert trend that once captivated the nation, ended with a thunk. However, America's sweet tooth doesn't retire - it just hunts for its next obsession. When all ofSprinkles' stores abruptly closed at the end of 2025, a curtain dropped on an era. Not because the dessert chain, cofounded by pastry chef and entrepreneur Candace Nelson in 2005, was the biggest, but because it was the name-brand symbol of the nation's cupcake years.
U.S. worker engagement has stagnated for decades, with more than two-thirds of workers feeling detached or disengaged. To reverse the trend, many executives have strived to build an "ownership culture," hoping personal responsibility will drive productivity. Yet most omit the most vital ingredient, actual ownership. We spent the past four years studying companies that committed to this missing piece, extending equity to all employees.
Data science and artificial intelligence are fundamentally redefining what constitutes skill in investment management, shifting the sources of sustainable competitive advantage in ways most firms have yet to comprehend. This is not about automating existing workflows. It is about reconceptualizing which analytical tasks can be systematized and which genuinely require human judgment, then rebuilding investment processes around that distinction. Firms that fail to recognize this depth are not simply adopting tools more slowly. They are misunderstanding the nature of the change itself.
"Yesterday, following Vimeo's recent acquisition by a private equity firm, I learned that I, along with a large portion of the company, was impacted by layoffs," wrote the company's former vice president of Global Brand & Creative, Dave Brown. He is referring to a firm called Bending Spoons that bought Vimeo for $1.38 billion in the latter half of 2025.
That messaging, which resonated with swing voters frustrated with inflation, helped propel Trump back into the White House. Nearly a year into his term, Trump's approval ratings have hit new lows as he calls the continuing affordability crisis a "Democrat hoax." Now, as the president is attempting to deliver a positive economic message ahead of the midterms, he's turned his eye to the costliest necessity - and one of the most complicated: housing.
The truth about this money: It is invested with some of the worst actors engineering the current takeover. That includes private equity firms, venture capitalists, and asset managers-the most powerful corporations in the world and the billionaires that run them. Many of these people are actively supporting the Trump administration; most are doing little to nothing to oppose it. And all oversee millions, if not billions, of dollars in worker and community capital.
A marketing technology firm that seeks to influence C-suite executives, policymakers, and other important people is getting a major infusion of cash from one of the world's biggest investors. Applecart received a $100 million investment from the private equity giant Blackstone last year, two people familiar with the situation first told Semafor, in a fundraising round that would value the New York-based data company at around $500 million.
As I was wading through the waters of all our predictions, readers painted a picture of possibilities and pressure in the private markets. AI, on one hand, is a force multiplier-on the other, it will be unevenly impactful and the losses as the industry consolidates will be staggering. Liquidity, meanwhile, is making a comeback, albeit with a new normal. Velocity is increasing, but so is fragility.
BOCA RATON, Fla.- Dec. 31, 2025 - DigitalBridge Group, Inc. ("DigitalBridge" or the "Company") (NYSE: DBRG), a leading global alternative asset manager dedicated to investing in digital infrastructure, and Crestview Partners ("Crestview"), a leading private equity firm, today announced that affiliated investment funds have completed their previously announced take-private acquisition of WideOpenWest, Inc. ("WOW!"), a top provider of fiber-broadband internet services and advanced connectivity solutions in the United States.
There is an echoing melancholy to this era, as we watch the end of Silicon Valley's hypergrowth era, the horrifying result of 15+ years of steering the tech industry away from solving actual problems in pursuit of eternal growth. Everything is more expensive, and every tech product has gotten worse, all so that every company can "do AI,"
Caliber Home Loans, which was sold to the parent of Newrez for $1.675 billion in 2021. Caliber made us fall in love with mortgage banking. It feels like when you create a great culture of people that are aligned, have a clear direction and guidance from the leadership team, you can do special things, Pendleton said in an interview with HousingWire. When we lost that alignment at the top, that's when things started to shift.
While mega-buyouts remain subdued, a quieter but significant shift is under way: the rise of co-investments in private markets. After two years of muted activity, UK-focused private equity firms are increasingly targeting mid-market opportunities, platform acquisitions and bolt-on deals, particularly in sectors offering resilient cash flows such as healthcare, business services, technology infrastructure and energy transition. According to industry figures, deal volumes are stabilising, even as valuations remain below the peaks of 2021.
"If you subscribe to our worldview that bringing superintelligence at scale at very low cost is going to be transformative, you try to figure out - how can I invest in that and take the least amount of risk?"
The University of Utah approved a private equity deal Tuesday that promised hundreds of millions of dollars for the school's athletic department, which like nearly every athletic department in the country is running an annual deficit. The Utes need money. Otro Capital of New York, a firm that seeks investments in sports, sees an opportunity. The company is offering more than $400 million to the school, a source told ESPN, plus Otro's operational expertise, to generate new revenue streams for the department.
WREXHAM, Wales -- Wrexham's celebrity owners have sold a minority stake in their on-the-rise soccer club to Apollo Sports Capital, a U.S.-based private equity firm. The deal, which was announced on Monday with no terms disclosed, includes investment by Apollo in the redevelopment of Wrexham's stadium and the surrounding area in the small Welsh city brought to fame by its namesake soccer club since American actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac bought it in 2021 and helped create a popular docuseries about the community.
