Good Morning! Wall Street is on pace for its best year ever. First-half profits hit a record $45.9B (+51%), and New York's comptroller says the full year could top $90B, nearly 1.4x last year's record. That sets up another record bonus season, with IB bonuses tracking up 20%+. LIV Golf, the bankrupt Saudi-backed tour, is getting up to $300M from BC Partners to save its 2027 season, and Dimon says Anthropic's Mythos pushed cyber risk up 10x.

Some high earners are ditching the 401(k) max, betting they can invest better on their own, distressed US loans hit their highest level since the pandemic, and PE and VC money is leaning Republican ahead of the midterms.

Plus: The Supreme Court sounds skeptical of a challenge to PE in 401(k)s, Anthropic is giving startups a free year of Claude Team plus $1,000 in credits, and how successful people say no to their bosses.

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If you've ever been a broke 20-something backpacking through Europe, you've probably stayed in a hostel. And when you’re young and adventurous, sometimes sleeping six feet from an Australian named Lachlan is worth it if the bed costs just $30 a night.

Turns out that in addition to helping create memories to last a lifetime, hostels also have a pretty solid business model. Hostels need fewer services and less staff than real hotels, and their customers are the kind of travelers who trade down when money gets tight. So naturally, private capital noticed, and now Apollo and Brookfield are figuring out how to optimize EBITDA per bunk bed.

Brookfield paid roughly $880 million for Generator Hostels’ European business last year, and Apollo provided A&O Hostels with nearly $1 billion of financing earlier this year. Both hostel groups want to use the capital to double in size. A&O is even turning an empty Berlin office into a 2,500-bed hostel that it will be the largest in Europe.

The traditional European hostel model is also almost tailor-made for private capital. Operators take cheap, slightly sketchy hostels and pour capital into fixing it up and adding amenities. And ultimately, these companies do a pretty solid job at squeezing out as much value as they can per square inch.

Generator has leaned into “poshtels,” which keep the shared rooms but add amenities like bars and rooftop terraces. So while Generator can squeeze a dozen guests into a room that a luxury hotel might sell to one traveler or couple, they also are rolling out the high-margin hotel amenities like bars and restaurants. 

Gen Z is the perfect customer base for a business offering one of the cheapest ways to spend a night in Europe. Gen Z wants to travel, but they’re still price-conscious. The number of large hostels in Europe rose 13% in the year through August, which outpaced hotels and every other type of accommodation.

Takeaway: Hostels might be the last untapped frontier for private capital, people like hostels precisely because they don't feel designed by private equity. Critics worry that as big chains move in, they could strip away the cheap, quirky, and local character that made hostels popular in the first place. And if your favorite $30 hostel suddenly gets a rooftop cocktail bar, dynamic pricing, and a slide in the investor deck about premiumization, you'll probably know what happened.

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Description:
Randy Holligan argues that Central and Eastern Europe represents one of the most overlooked opportunities in global private equity. The book examines the region's fragmented founder-owned businesses, relatively low private equity penetration, strong technical talent, nearshoring trends, and growing entrepreneurial ecosystem. Holligan's thesis is that CEE offers investors an unusual combination of developed-market infrastructure and faster growth, creating opportunities for buy-and-build strategies, operational improvements, cross-border consolidation, and eventual sales to international strategics. Rather than treating the region simply as an emerging-market bet, he presents it as an increasingly integrated European economic bloc whose capital markets have not yet caught up with its underlying potential. The book is ultimately a case for looking beyond crowded U.S. and Western European markets to find attractive acquisition opportunities where operational expertise can create significant value.

Book Length: 240 pages
Release Date: September 2026

Ideal For:
Private equity professionals, investors, entrepreneurs, M&A executives, and anyone interested in Central and Eastern Europe, buy-and-build strategies, emerging-market investing, near-shoring, and overlooked opportunities in global private markets.

“The best opportunities are often found where capital is scarce, competition is limited, and the market has yet to recognize what the business can become.”

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A pilot project. A minority investment. A phased rollout. A lease with a renewal clause.

They all have something in common: you are buying an option.

You spend a little today to preserve the right, but not the obligation, to spend a lot more tomorrow.

That sounds cautious. In reality, it can be incredibly aggressive.

When uncertainty is high, most people freeze. But uncertainty is precisely when flexibility becomes most valuable. You can learn before you commit, double down when the evidence is good, and walk away when it is not.

Think about it like investing: you don't need to know the future if you can buy the right to participate in it.

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While you wait, competitors can move, opportunities can disappear, prices can rise, and the window can close.

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What am I giving up by waiting?

The smartest decision is not always yes or no.

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