Brad Meikle

South African investment house Brait SE offered $1 billion for a controlling stake in gym group Virgin Active on Thursday, seeking to tap the growing health-conscious middle classes particularly in Africa and Asia, Reuters reported.

Blackstone Group LP, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, said on Thursday that its first-quarter profit doubled from a year ago, as strong asset sales generated by its private equity and real estate units brought in record cash, Reuters reported.

ThyssenKrupp is nearing a sale of its loss-making alloys unit VDM to private equity firm Lindsay Goldberg Vogel for about 500 million euros ($530 million), German business daily Handelsblatt reported on Wednesday.

Democrat Hillary Clinton blasted executive pay and tax rates for hedge-fund managers on Tuesday, using the first stop of her low-key campaign rollout in Iowa to highlight her promise to help Americans struggling toward economic recovery, Reuters reported.

Emerging-markets focused private equity firm Abraaj Group has appointed Huda Al Lawati as a partner and chief investment officer for the Middle East and North Africa region, it said on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

Indian logistics firm Gateway Distriparks Ltd is aiming to list its rail unit, valued by analysts at nearly $500 million, by the end of the current financial year in March 2016, two sources directly involved in the process told Reuters.

Texas’s largest power company, the bankrupt Energy Future Holdings Corp, on Tuesday laid out a plan for cutting $42 billion in debt and said it will seek creditor and court approval by the end of the year, Reuters reported.

European private equity firm Doughty Hanson is to drop its current fundraising efforts, and will instead focus on its remaining portfolio, the buyout firm said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

Energy & Minerals Group (EMG), which has invested billions in oil and gas ventures with former Chesapeake Energy Corp Chief Executive Officer Aubrey McClendon, has moved to extricate itself from a lawsuit filed by Chesapeake alleging McClendon stole its trade secrets and used them to build up his new businesses, Reuters reported.

Former Democratic Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is joining the Boston-based private equity firm Bain Capital founded by his predecessor, Republican Mitt Romney, the Boston Globe reported on Tuesday, according to Reuters.