What’s Happening

Apollo Global Management is in advanced talks to acquire a majority stake in Atlético de Madrid, in a deal that could value the La Liga club at about €2.5 billion ($2.9B). 

Current owners Miguel Ángel Gil Marín, Enrique Cerezo, and Ares Management may sell part or all of their holdings. Apollo’s plan is phased—control could grow over time rather than overnight. Alongside the talks, Atlético is preparing a capital raise of at least €60 million to bolster its squad and build out leisure and real-estate projects around its stadium. [Reuters, El País]

Why It Matters

Private equity’s playbook in sports is moving from curiosity to conviction. Teams like Atlético deliver recurring revenues (broadcast rights, ticketing, sponsorships, and merchandise) that look more like infrastructure cash flows than speculative bets. 

Add in global fandom and digital distribution, and clubs are becoming full-fledged asset classes.

The Playbook

Investor Signal

On the surface, this looks like another trophy-asset acquisition. In practice, it’s private equity betting that sports franchises are the next infrastructure—scarce, sticky, and scalable. Control the club, and you don’t just own a team; you own a platform of global cash flows.

Waud Capital Partners is teaming up with Bill Mixon, former CEO of National Seating & Mobility, to launch a new healthcare platform. 

The exact focus isn’t public yet, but Waud’s track record points toward fragmented niches with reliable cash flow — think outpatient services, specialty care, or tech-enabled delivery.

Why It Matters

Healthcare remains PE’s fortress sector. Aging demographics, steady government spending, and chronic-care demand make it one of the most durable growth plays. Pairing a veteran operator with PE capital is the standard opening move in billion-dollar roll-ups.

What’s Next

Expect Waud to pursue a “buy and build” strategy, snapping up smaller providers in areas like behavioral health, home care, or specialty clinics. Mixon’s appointment signals they’re not testing the waters — they’re gearing up to scale.

Investor Signal

For public-market investors, the same logic applies. Consolidation drives margins. Watch healthcare service stocks and medical REITs: private capital’s appetite often shows up as multiple expansion in listed peers.

EQT is kicking off a sale of GlobalConnect, its Nordic infrastructure business, in a deal that could top €8 billion. The company runs more than half of the region’s internet traffic through its fiber and data center network.

Why It Matters

Data centers are the hottest corner of private markets. Hyperscale demand, AI workloads, and national security concerns are pushing valuations higher. If Nordic assets command this price, it signals U.S. and European multiples still have room to run.

What’s Next

GlobalConnect’s auction will set the benchmark for future sales. If buyers stretch toward €8B, expect ripple effects across both private and public markets.

Investor Takeaway

Public REITs like Equinix and Digital Realty — plus infrastructure ETFs — give exposure to the same trend. Private equity sets the comps, but public investors ride the valuation wave.

The IPO window may be opening, but private equity is running just as hard in the opposite direction: buying undervalued public companies and taking them private. Three fresh deals tell the story:

The office-supply chain has been squeezed by Amazon, Walmart, and decades of failed Staples tie-ups. Atlas is betting $1B on a turnaround, shifting focus from retail drag to B2B services. A 34% premium shows even shrinking categories can attract buyers if the repositioning looks credible.

Pricing-software maker PROS has sticky enterprise clients and recurring SaaS revenue, but weak profitability kept its stock discounted. Thoma Bravo sees the margin potential, efficiencies public markets weren’t patient enough to wait for.

In healthcare, Patient Square is taking hospital-supply chain and data firm Premier private. At $2.6B, it’s a bet that private ownership can move faster than Wall Street rewards, especially in essential hospital services.

Why It Matters

Public markets are punishing complexity and slow fixes. Private equity is leaning into businesses that may look stalled in the short term but have essential demand at their core… office services, enterprise software, healthcare ops. 

The logic is consistent: what the market won’t price fairly, PE will buy, refocus, and eventually resell.

Investor Signal

For public-market investors, watch where take-privates cluster. Those sectors often mark the disconnect between public multiples and real demand. It doesn’t mean every stock gets bought, but it does highlight where the floor is forming — and where smart money is already circling.

PitchBook analysis shows that private equity and venture capital “dry powder” — capital that has been committed but not yet deployed — is finally starting to shrink. 

That decline matters because it removes some of the excess slack that has been cushioning the industry for the past decade. With less idle capital chasing deals, firms that can move quickly and execute with precision will be in a stronger position than those still waiting on the sidelines.

At the same time, fundraising momentum is not collapsing. Survey data suggests investors are preparing to channel new commitments into four strategies in particular: buyouts, secondaries, co-investments, and private credit. 

These are not random bets. They reflect where limited partners feel risk is most manageable and return potential is most visible. 

Buyouts remain the bedrock of private markets, private credit has become the default choice for yield, and secondaries and co-investments are attractive because they often provide lower fees and quicker clarity on outcomes than more speculative asset classes.

The signal here is that capital is not leaving private markets; it is being reallocated. As dry powder tightens, expect fundraising to cluster around these four strategies. 

The funds that combine efficient operations with a strong sourcing edge, whether in buyout platforms, credit shops, or secondary vehicles, are the ones most likely to outperform in this next phase.

Private markets are heading into the fall with crosscurrents pulling in opposite directions. On one side, dry powder is thinning and LPs are steering toward safer ground in buyouts, secondaries, co-investments, and credit. On the other, GPs are pushing deeper into new frontiers, from Apollo’s sports franchise play in Madrid to EQT’s €8B data-center auction.

The common thread is scarcity. Whether it’s globally recognized football clubs, hyperscale fiber networks, or hospital supply chains, the deals attracting capital are the ones rooted in assets that can’t easily be replicated. 

That scarcity premium is showing up across sectors, and it is redefining what counts as “infrastructure.”

Next week brings fresh signals. GlobalConnect’s auction will test just how high investors will go for digital infrastructure in Europe. Healthcare platforms like Waud’s new build are lining up their first moves, and the take-private pipeline is growing as public markets keep discounting complexity.

The message for investors is clear. Don’t just follow where capital has been deployed. Watch where scarcity, scale, and essential demand intersect,  that is where the next round of private market leadership will be priced.