Good morning, ! It's Wednesday, and we're covering record-breaking private equity investments in nuclear energy, the rise of continuation funds, a $6.1B play in pro sports, and more.

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Monthly Data Dive: Private Equity Goes Nuclear (Literally)

In 2024, PE investment in advanced nuclear hit $783.3M—more than the previous 15 years combined. Why? AI. The machine-learning gold rush is expected to double data center power demand by 2030, and there’s only one scalable, 24/7, carbon-free power source: nuclear. Cue the rise of small modular reactors (SMRs) and Generation III+ tech. Firms like Ares and NGP are piling in, alongside Amazon and Alphabet. It’s not just a bet on clean energy—it’s a long-term infrastructure play disguised as a climate strategy. The AI boom may have trained on GPUs, but it runs on uranium.

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Middle-Market PE Valuations Keep Sliding

📉 The Decline Continues: After peaking in 2021, PE middle-market valuations have been on a bumpy ride downhill. EV/revenue multiples have dropped from 3x in 2021 to just 2.2x in 2024, continuing a three-year decline. The reason? Less transparency, more volatility, and a shift in deal mix.

🔄 A Market Out of Sync: Unlike the broader M&A market—where valuations dipped in 2022 but began rebounding in 2023—middle-market PE is still searching for a bottom. EV/EBITDA multiples show a slight recovery (from 11.6x in 2023 to 13x in 2024), but revenue-based multiples continue to slip.

⏳ The Exit Backlog is Real: Over 5,000 PE-backed companies are waiting for a sale, a third of which have been held for over five years. More deals are getting done, but many involve businesses with lower quality earnings, pushing multiples further down. Bottom line? The reset may be over, but a sharp rebound isn’t in the cards—yet.

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Continuation Funds: Private Equity’s ATM?

Liquidity has been a headache for private equity firms in a sluggish exit market, but continuation funds are providing some much-needed cash relief. The biggest single-asset continuation vehicles, like CD&R’s $4B Value Building Partners I or GIP’s $3.9B Gatwick Airport Fund, show that sponsors are doubling down on prized assets instead of cashing out completely. Infrastructure and buyouts dominate the list, with firms like Clearlake and Stonepeak making repeat appearances.

The takeaway? When IPO and M&A exits dry up, PE firms just refinance their best deals, sometimes at record-breaking sums. The question is, how long can this game go on before LPs push back?

Celtics Cash In: PE Money Buys a Dynasty at Record $6.1B

Private equity just set another record in the sports world. A group led by Bill Chisholm, co-founder of Symphony Technology Group, is acquiring the Boston Celtics for $6.1 billion, making it the most expensive U.S. sports team sale ever. 

Sixth Street is contributing over $1 billion to the deal, alongside Boston businessman Rob Hale and real estate exec Bruce Beal Jr. The sale reflects soaring sports franchise valuations, fueled by skyrocketing media rights deals—case in point: the NBA’s new $76 billion broadcast package. With private equity increasingly welcomed into pro sports, this may be just the start of bigger deals to come.

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Private Credit’s New Power Players

Private credit is no longer just a playground for institutional giants—insurance and wealth investors are making their presence felt. Of the $394B raised by the top seven U.S.-listed alternative asset managers in 2024, a striking 45.9% came from insurance (35.1%) and wealth channels (10.9%). That’s nearly half of all capital, signaling a major shift in fundraising dynamics.

Why it matters: Traditional LPs still dominate, but insurers and retail investors are proving to be reliable, deep-pocketed sources of capital. With a challenging macro backdrop, expect asset managers to keep courting these nontraditional backers to fuel the private credit boom.

With all the hype around AI, ever wonder who’s actually using it? We were curious and wanted to know (and we’ll also share the results with you!).

The Fed’s Balancing Act: Rate Cuts Coming… Probably

The Fed held rates steady at 4.25%-4.5% but still sees two cuts this year—assuming the economy plays nice. Inflation remains stubborn at 2.8%, growth projections have dipped to 1.7%, and tariffs are adding more uncertainty to the mix. 

In response, the Fed is slowing down its “quantitative tightening” (read: shrinking its bond portfolio), effectively injecting liquidity into the system. Markets loved it—the Dow jumped 400+ points—but Powell made it clear: if inflation stays sticky, rate cuts could get benched. Translation: The Fed is signaling cuts, but don’t bet the house just yet.

March 21, 2000: From .com to .gone

On this day 25 years ago, the dot-com bubble met its most underrated villain: the Federal Reserve. March 21 marked the Fed’s fourth rate hike in under a year, and the fragile house of unprofitable Internet cards began to collapse. 

It wasn’t just bad timing—it was the exact moment that capital costs jumped and investor delusion met a spreadsheet. MicroStrategy imploded first. The rest of the market followed, proving once again that when money gets expensive, hype gets cheap.

"If you can find a big, hairy deal with solvable problems, that’s where the real money is"

Brad Jacobs