Good Morning and Happy Friday! Carlyle raised $20B to acquire secondary PE stakes from investors offloading assets built up during the slowdown in IPOs and M&A. The Kelce brothers’ Garage Beer is now valued at $200M, and Goldman projects gold could rise to $5,000 if Fed independence becomes a concern.

Goldman also took a $1B stake in T. Rowe Price that will see them jointly offer a range of private-market products to retirement savers and moneyed investors. Private equity is lifting NFL valuations, even without team ownership. And Luckin Coffee is taking on Starbucks with its first NYC outpost.

Plus: StubHub and Netskope will launch IPO roadshows next week, Lululemon fell 15% on another guidance cut, and is Gemini 2.5 Pro more effective than the Bloomberg Terminal?

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SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Alts Go Main Street

For years, private credit was basically off-limits unless you were a pension fund or an endowment. It was the quiet corner of alternatives and was wrapped in exclusivity. But in 2025, that is changing fast.

Affluent Americans are starting to pile into private credit. They have already committed $48 billion in the first half of 2025, already topping all of 2023 and on pace to beat the 2024 record of $83.4 billion.

A key reason why? Institutions are tapped out. Exits are slow, buyout portfolios are clogged, and distributions are at their weakest since 2009. That leaves a gap that Main Street is filling, with managers pitching private credit as higher yield and rare access to strategies that used to be strictly for Wall Street’s inner circle.

Blackstone, Apollo, Ares, and Blue Owl are chasing wealth platforms as hard as they once chased CIOs.

A decade ago, alternatives managers stayed in the shadows. Now they are selling themselves courtside. Blue Owl is sponsoring over 100 professional tennis players this year. They have spent $2 million on player patches to get their logo in front of wealthy investors. If you watched the U.S. Open, you probably spotted Blue Owl’s name on a jersey.

The products being offered are a perfect match for retail. Non-traded BDCs and interval funds are designed to provide perpetual capital and some liquidity, packaged to feel exclusive but without the decade-long lockups of traditional private equity.

The scale is striking: Blackstone’s BCRED is pulling in $50 million a day from wealthy investors, while Blue Owl has raised $7B from wealthy clients and Cliffwater pulled in $11 billion in a single year.

The risk is timing. Retail money is rushing in as spreads tighten and competition peaks, compressing the illiquidity premium. Even industry leaders caution that supply-demand imbalances make outsized returns harder to generate.

Meanwhile, perpetual strategies keep growing across the big public alt managers, hitting about 41 percent of total AUM for the top seven by late 2024. Managers like the perpetual fees, but Main Street may be stepping into a crowded trade.

Takeaway: Alternatives are not hiding in the shadows anymore and have moved from closed-door allocations to tennis jerseys and wealth-management platforms. The capital is flowing, but the question is whether the returns will keep up. As a wise man once said, courtside branding is easy, court-worthy returns are harder.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Carlyle raises $20B for new buyout fund (YF)

• Goldman says gold could hit $5,000 as Fed-independence fears grow (NYP)

• Kelce brothers’ Garage Beer valued at $200M (WSJ)

• Goldman to buy $1B stake of T. Rowe stock (YF)

• Luckin Coffee challenges Starbucks with NYC debut (NYT)

• Private equity pushes NFL team valuations higher (CNBC)

• StubHub, Netskope to begin IPO marketing as soon as Monday (YF)

• Broadcom’s stock pops on mystery $10B AI customer (CNBC)

• Banks ready $38B of debt for Oracle tied data centers (YF)

• McDonald's takes issue with tips (WSJ)

• Lululemon shares plunge as earnings guidance short of estimates (CNBC)

• KKR and Apollo fuel wave of private investment in Asia’s schools (BB)

• Billionaire fashion designer Giorgio Armani dies at 91 (Fox)

• U.S. adds 99,000 jobs in August, below forecasts (CNBC)

• BofA opens private equity access to ultra-wealthy clients (BB)

• Paramount mandates full-time RTO (WSJ)

• Private credit leans on secondaries as payouts shrink (BB)

• Private assets increasingly rely on public buyers (BB)

• Fund manager sees “generational opportunity” in bond market (CNBC)

• Goldman wants everyone to be long term greedy (FT)

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CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• U.S. stocks closed higher, with the S&P 500 reaching another record ahead of today’s jobs report.

• Consumer discretionary and communication stocks led gains, while utilities lagged.

• 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.16%, signaling caution before labor data.

• European equities rose, supported by better-than-expected retail sales data (-0.5% vs. -0.9% est.).

• Dollar strengthened; WTI oil slipped ahead of this weekend’s OPEC meeting, where output hikes may be discussed.

Economic Data Highlights

• ADP employment report showed 54K job gains in August, well below estimates for 85K.

• Leisure & Hospitality contributed nearly all growth (+50K), offset by job losses in trade/transport/utilities (-17K) and education/health (-12K).

• Consensus for NFP is +80K payrolls and steady unemployment at 4.2%. A softer-than-expected print would reinforce expectations for a September Fed rate cut.

Labor Market Signals

• Initial jobless claims rose to 237K, slightly above forecasts, while continuing claims held at 1.94M.

• Job openings remain roughly equal to unemployment at ~7.2M, suggesting a labor market cooling gradually rather than collapsing.

• Lower rates and further deregulation could help offset some of this slowdown in the months ahead.

Reported Earnings

• Broadcom (AVGO) – Reported strong AI-driven chip demand and better-than-expected revenue; margins held firm.

• Lululemon (LULU) – Same-store sales and revenue beat estimates; inventory position improved meaningfully.

• DocuSign (DOCU) – Earnings topped forecasts; e-signature volumes stabilized and AI analytics tools are seeing adoption.

Earnings Today

• No significant earnings scheduled

Movers & Shakers

• (+) American Eagle ($AEO) +38% after the retailer posted strong sales thanks to the Sydney Sweeney effect.

• (–) Salesforce ($CRM) -5% because AI gains failed to lift earnings growth.

• (–) Figma ($FIG) -20% after a weak sales growth outlook in the company’s first earnings report since the IPO.

Private Dealmaking

• Atlassian agreed to acquire The Browser Co. for $610 million

• Quantinuum, a quantum computing group, raised $600 million

• KKR acquired Samhwa for $528 million

• BETA Technologies, a maker of electric aircraft, raised $300 million

• Enveda, a drug discovery startup focused on medicinal plants, raised $150 million

• You.com, an enterprise AI infrastructure startup, raised $100 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Born To Be Wired

Description:
A riveting memoir from the legendary "Cable Cowboy" himself. John Malone chronicles an extraordinary career that helped build the backbone of modern media—from the early cable networks that ignited Discovery and TBS to pioneering high-speed internet infrastructure and steering major brands like Formula One and Sirius XM. With precision, humility, and engineering clarity, he maps how a single strand of copper evolved into the digital economy powering global giants today.

Book Length: 432 pages
Release Date: September 2, 2025

Ideal For: Professionals in media, telecom, technology, and leadership—plus anyone fascinated by industrial transformation and the hidden architects behind modern connectivity.

“Over a lifetime of business deals, the most valuable currency has been relationships.” — John Malone

DAILY VISUAL

OnlyFans Slowdown

Want more? Visualize the markets with Carbon Finance

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Are You Ready For Some Football?!

Kalshi is.

Earlier this month, they self‑certified new football markets just ahead of the NFL and college season: spread bets, total points, and player touchdown props. The goal: institutional liquidity, price transparency, and a peer‑to‑peer structure that sidesteps traditional gaming regulation.

Kalshi functions like a financial exchange, not a sportsbook. Traders buy “Yes” or “No” contracts priced between 1¢ and 99¢, and correct outcomes pay out $1. It’s speculation reimagined for Wall Street, not Vegas.

Start football season with a forecast, not a wager. Trade your convictions with Kalshi’s regulated event contracts.

DAILY ACUMEN

Drawdowns

Every portfolio faces drawdowns. They’re not failures, they’re the cost of staying invested.

Life has drawdowns too—failed projects, rough quarters, years where nothing seems to work.

The mistake is confusing drawdowns with permanent loss.

Most investors underperform their own holdings because they panic-sell at the bottom.

Most people underperform their own potential because they quit during the slump.

Drawdowns hurt, but they also reset the field. They shake out the impatient, leaving more room for those who endure.

Your job during a drawdown is not to predict the bottom, but to survive it—so that when the rebound comes, you’re still holding the position.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• 5 ways to learn to love self-discipline

• How to manage US asset domination in portfolios  

• Is Gemini 2.5 Pro better than Bloomberg Terminal?

• How emotional regulation became a superpower

• Nike's new slogan asks: Why do it?

• Common money tips that are keeping you broke

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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