Good morning, {{First Name}}! This week, AI’s infrastructure race is spilling into the debt markets. SoftBank is raising more than $11B, European LBO activity has climbed to €49.9B, and Blackstone and EQT just closed a $6.6B infrastructure bet.

Meanwhile, sponsors are still funding nearly half of European buyouts with equity—leaving plenty of room for private credit to step in.

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MICROSURVEY

PRIVATE CREDIT CORNER

European LBO activity has climbed to €49.9B on an LTM basis through April 2026, up from €44.5B in 2025 and more than 3.5x the €14.1B trough in 2023. Deal flow is recovering. The financing mix tells the more interesting story.

Equity still represents 49.2% of average LBO proceeds, versus 32.5% from senior debt and 13.8% from high yield bonds. Sponsors are getting deals done, but nearly half the capital stack is still coming from their own pockets.

That creates an opening for private credit. As transaction volume normalizes, direct lenders that can provide certainty, flexibility, and larger checks have room to replace portions of that unusually heavy equity contribution.

The opportunity is simple: Europe does not need another €102.6B year for credit deployment to accelerate. It just needs leverage to return faster than sponsor equity retreats. (More)

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Artificial intelligence has moved beyond experimentation. The real question for private equity firms is no longer whether to adopt AI, but how to turn it into measurable value across the investment lifecycle.

On November 18, PE150 and CapLink Group will host the AI / Data & Insight Private Capital Breakfast, an invitation-only gathering at London's May Fair Hotel that will bring together operating partners, deal teams, portfolio executives, and technology leaders to discuss what AI adoption actually looks like inside private equity.

The morning will feature three practitioner-led discussions:

Interested in attending? Register or request the full agenda here.

Interested in sponsoring? Email [email protected]

HEADLINE OF THE WEEK

So What? AI is moving from an equity-market story into a credit-market story, with massive infrastructure spending beginning to reshape capital allocation, borrowing costs and private-market opportunities.

This week, SoftBank launched more than $11 billion of bonds to help finance its OpenAI investment, underscoring how quickly the AI buildout is migrating into debt markets. At the same time, investors are demanding wider spreads on AI-linked corporate debt as issuance accelerates and concerns rise around concentration risk and the returns on enormous capex programs.

For private equity, the implication is two-sided. The boom is creating opportunities across data centers, power, cooling, fiber and digital infrastructure, while also introducing a new class of mega-borrowers competing for institutional capital.

The AI race is increasingly becoming a financing race—and that could matter for private credit, leveraged finance and infrastructure valuations well beyond technology. (More)

DEAL OF THE WEEK

Blackstone and EQT have completed their $6.6 billion acquisition of Urbaser, the Spanish waste management and environmental services company, from Platinum Equity.

The deal puts two infrastructure heavyweights behind a business operating across essential services, including waste collection, recycling and treatment. As part of the transaction, the new owners plan to significantly reduce Urbaser’s leverage and strengthen its capital structure, creating additional room for growth.

For Platinum, the transaction delivers something PE firms have been chasing: liquidity at scale. For Blackstone and EQT, it’s a bet on the defensive characteristics of environmental infrastructure—recurring demand, essential services and long-term exposure to increasingly complex waste-management needs.

The bottom line: In a market still searching for exits, a $6.6B sponsor-to-sponsor transaction shows that large assets can move when buyers see durable cash flows and enough runway for the next value-creation cycle. Trash, apparently, can still be treasure.

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DEALS TRACKER

Climate Adaptive Infrastructure → SMT Energy | Up to $268M
Climate Adaptive Infrastructure committed up to $268M in equity to battery energy storage developer SMT Energy. The investment adds fresh capital behind grid-scale storage as power demand and renewable integration drive infrastructure investment. More

CD&R + Warburg Pincus → Canaccord Wealth | Amount Undisclosed
CD&R and Warburg Pincus are reportedly in talks to acquire Canaccord Wealth from Canaccord Genuity. The potential deal extends PE’s push into wealth management, where recurring fee revenue and consolidation continue to attract sponsor capital. More

MML Capital → Dalcour Maclaren | Amount Undisclosed
MML Capital invested in Dalcour Maclaren, a U.K. utilities and infrastructure consultancy. The deal gives MML exposure to a services platform positioned around long-term investment in utilities and energy infrastructure. More

Pfingsten → Next Point Bearing Group | Amount Undisclosed
Pfingsten acquired Next Point Bearing Group, a distributor of precision bearings and power transmission components. The deal fits the classic PE industrial playbook: a specialized distribution platform in a fragmented market with room for add-on M&A. More

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