It started with a series of meetings at the Carlyle Hotel in New York, and grew to become one of the world’s most ambitious and well-connected private equity firms. Its Rolodex was unrivaled, and its advisers included the first President George Bush and John Major, the former British prime minister.

All along the way, David M. Rubenstein has been the face of the Carlyle Group, which he co-founded 30 years ago. He has raised billions of dollars for investments, struck deals with brands including Dunkin’ Donuts and Beats Electronics, and lobbied Congress to protect a tax arrangement that made the private equity business so tremendously lucrative…

Love the returns. Hate the fees. Is it time to go solo?

The biggest U.S. pension fund isn’t happy. After years of paying steep fees to private equity fund managers, it’s plotting an end run. Officials of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which oversees about $337 billion, gave fund managers an earful at a pension board meeting on July 17 in Monterey. Huffed one CalPERS director: “I don’t see your industry standing up and justifying fees.” (The pension’s chief investment officer later said it would explore buying more companies on its own to lower fees and lift returns.) Firing back, Sandra Horbach, a top executive at Carlyle Group LP, one of the world’s biggest leveraged buyout managers, warned that CalPERS and other pensions looking for their own deals would be at a “strategic disadvantage” in a head-to-head rivalry with private equity firms like Carlyle…

Once regarded as novices, family offices are looking beyond stocks and bonds to pursue direct investments in companies and real estate. The most sophisticated are turning into investing giants.

Michael Gottdenker glimpsed the future over a bowl of pasta earlier this year, and he liked what he saw…

Wealthy Families Are Winning Deals Away From Private Equity

• Vacasa raises $104 million as vacation rental market grows
• Financing is said to nearly double company valuation

Vacasa LLC, an online vacation rental company, raised $104 million from a group of private equity firms looking to build up a challenger to Airbnb…

Private Equity Looks to Challenge Airbnb With Vacasa Deal

• Locks in export price of $46 per barrel for 2018: Rubio
• Larger stabilization fund will help secure price for 2018

These days, even coin collectors have turned sour on bullion. Sales of gold coins in the first nine months of the year shrank to the lowest in a decade, U.S. Mint data show. The metal’s appeal is waning as retail investors seek better returns in equities, lured by the S&P 500 Index’s climb to records, said Peter Thomas, a senior vice president at Zaner Group LLC in Chicago…

Gold-Coin Sales Drop to Decade Low as Retail Buyers Flee: Chart

LONDON — The Swiss engineering firm ABB Group said on Monday that it would buy General Electric’s business that provides circuit breakers and other electrical equipment for industry for $2.6 billion, as the American giant looks for ways to shake up its operations.

The deal is the latest move by General Electric as it seeks to refocus on its roots. The company had expanded into a sprawling conglomerate but its once-huge financial business threatened its survival after the 2008 economic crisis, and it has been selling off an array of units since…

Swiss Firm ABB to Buy G.E.’s Industrial Solutions Business for $2.6 Billion

• Leverage, lack of lending covenants drive deals, he says
• Sees Alibaba as world’s biggest financial institution one day

The private equity industry will continue to play a growing role in financial markets, fueled by low yields and investors’ willingness to forgo traditional risk protections, Michael Milken said.

“This is their golden age,” Milken, who helped pioneer the junk bond market at Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc., said Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Singapore. “You can leverage, you can borrow without covenants, and so for equity holders it affords you very unusual rates of return.”…

An American casino mogul is making a timely bet on Houston.

The owner of both the Golden Nugget gambling enterprise and the Landry’s restaurant empire, Tilman J. Fertitta, will pay $2.2 billion for the Houston Rockets basketball team. Buying a trophy asset as the city rebuilds from Hurricane Harvey makes for awkward timing. And yet the deal also suggests an abiding faith in the city to recover…

$2.2 Billion Deal for Rockets Is a Casino Mogul’s Bet on Houston

• First-time founders raise huge sums for inaugural funds
• ‘They’re striking while the iron is hot,’ says a lawyer

In his almost two decades at KKR & Co., Adam Clammer helped lead some of its bigger investments in technology, such as Go Daddy and NXP Semiconductors. Then, he got the itch to do what a lot of his peers are doing: to go out on his own.

LONDON — Matchesfashion.com, the British luxury e-commerce group that began life as a single bricks-and-mortar boutique before growing into one of the most powerful online players in the global high-fashion market, has a new majority shareholder after a fierce bidding war.

The company said on Friday that the private equity firm Apax Partners would take a controlling stake in the business, which the married couple Tom and Ruth Chapman founded in 1987. The Chapmans and the venture capital firms Scottish Equity Partners and Highland Europe will retain minority stakes, the company said in a statement…

Matchesfashion.com Sells Majority Stake to Apax After Fierce Bidding War

In 1993, Ray Dalio, the chairman of what is today the largest hedge fund in the world, Bridgewater Associates, received a memo signed by his top three lieutenants that was startlingly honest in its assessment of him.

It was a performance review of sorts, and not in a good way. After mentioning his positive attributes, they spelled out the negatives. “Ray sometimes says or does things to employees which makes them feel incompetent, unnecessary, humiliated, overwhelmed, belittled, pressed or otherwise bad,” the memo read. “If he doesn’t manage people well, growth will be stunted and we will all be affected.”

• China’s mainland shares emerging from offshore stocks’ shadow
• Eastspring, KGI see A shares taking the lead in coming months

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The also-rans of China’s stock rally this year, mainland equities have been overshadowed by the spectacular surge in their offshore-listed counterparts — until now.

As equities from Seoul to Hong Kong were felled by Tuesday’s North Korea-inspired wave of risk aversion, Shanghai was one of the few benchmarks globally to rack up gains, driving home how much has changed in a market that was in the red as recently as two months ago…

• EuroMena plans to raise $300 million for SME, debt funds
• Firm expects to close two acquisitions, three exits this year

EuroMena Funds, a Beirut-based private-equity firm that has raised $350 million since 2006, plans to almost double assets as it seeks investments in Lebanese-owned companies operating abroad.

After a decade of deploying most of its capital in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, EuroMena’s latest fund has spent $55 million for stakes in a toilet-paper manufacturer in Nigeria, a Tunisia-based operator of clothing stores, and the Moroccan franchisee of French retailer Carrefour SA, said Giles de Clerck, the firm’s executive partner.

• EuroMena plans to raise $300 million for SME, debt funds
• Firm expects to close two acquisitions, three exits this year

EuroMena Funds, a Beirut-based private-equity firm that has raised $350 million since 2006, plans to almost double assets as it seeks investments in Lebanese-owned companies operating abroad while also backing smaller businesses in its home regions.

After a decade of deploying most of its capital in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, EuroMena’s latest fund has spent $55 million for stakes in a toilet-paper manufacturer in Nigeria, a Tunisia-based operator of clothing stores, and the Moroccan franchisee of French retailer Carrefour SA, said Giles de Clerck, the firm’s executive partner. Two more acquisitions are expected to be completed this year, he said…

• Chinese billionaires increase net worth 46.8% so far in 2017
• Eight of the biggest fortunes more than double since yearend

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The equity rally propelling global asset values higher this year is once again turning China into the world’s fastest-growing wealth machine.

The fortunes of the 40 Chinese billionaires on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index have surged 46.8 percent since yearend, dominating the wealth gains of all nationalities and sending their combined net worth to $417 billion…

China’s Wealthiest Gain the Most This Year in Global Asset Rally

• PNB may invest in fixed income, property, private equity
• Weak ringgit, lack of attractive investments holding PNB back

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Malaysia’s largest state-owned fund manager is looking to hold less cash even as it struggles to make acquisitions that would generate attractive returns.

A fifth of Permodalan Nasional Bhd.’s 266 billion ringgit ($62 billion) of assets under management is in cash and money markets, and Chairman Abdul Wahid Omar said in an interview that the fund could reduce such holdings by at least 5 percentage points. That would free up about 13.3 billion ringgit, according to Bloomberg calculations…

• Federal filings show more violations than other big pipelines
• Project will transport natural gas from Marcellus shale

In the energy business, it’s one of the biggest projects going today: construction of a 710-mile pipeline to transport natural gas from America’s most prolific shale deposit in the eastern U.S. to consumers in the Midwest and Canada. Even Blackstone Group LP has agreed to take a sizable stake.

But it holds another, more dubious, distinction. The Energy Transfer Partners LP pipeline has racked up more environmental violations than other major interstate natural gas pipelines built in the last two years, according to a Bloomberg analysis of regulatory filings during that period. And that’s all since U.S. regulators approved the $4.2 billion project in February…

• Biggest private equity manager bets on energy infrastructure
• Deal follows firm’s credit, secondary additions in past decade

Blackstone Group LP will add $10 billion in assets by buying energy investor Harvest Fund Advisors, betting that demand for pipelines and facilities will continue to rise despite sluggish energy prices.

Blackstone is acquiring the Wayne, Pennsylvania-based firm for an undisclosed amount of cash and future incentive payouts, Blackstone partner Dwight Scott said in a phone interview Thursday. Harvest’s 18-person team will remain at their headquarters and continue to be led by Eric Conklin, who will report through Blackstone’s credit unit…

LONDON — Akzo Nobel, the Dutch paint and chemicals company, said on Wednesday that it had reached a truce with Elliott Management, ending a dispute that had been the latest example of an activist investor looking to reshape a major business.

The dispute had centered on repeated efforts by PPG Industries, an American rival, to take over Akzo Nobel, which counts Dulux paint among its brands. Akzo Nobel rebuffed the approaches, and PPG abandoned its pursuit in June…

Akzo Nobel Ends Feud With Elliott Management

Cracks are appearing in India’s bull market, which has handed equity investors total returns of 19 percent this year, as the new sales tax bites into corporate earnings forecasts. Profit expectations for companies have been cut about 10 percent since the start of April, just as analysts increase their optimism for firms across the Asia Pacific region. Bulls are hoping the effects of the tax on Indian goods and services introduced last month will be temporary, while the bears are declaring that earnings don’t justifythe 21 percent run up in stock prices since the start of 2016…

Profit Worries Show Peril Embedded in Indian Equity Surge: Chart

Private equity firms are continuing to diversify away from, well, private equity.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that Advent International is planning a move into debt investing and is in the early stages of forming a team to then raise a dedicated fund. The news comes just weeks after tech-focused buyout specialist Thoma Bravo confirmed in a filing that said it’s seeking to raise $750 million for its first fund dedicated to credit investing, joining others in the industry that already have thriving debt businesses…

Private Equity Follows the Money

After the housing market collapsed more than a decade ago, new investors poured in to buy foreclosed homes and rent them out. Now, a $4.3 billion deal suggests that the bargain-hunting binge in housing is finally over.

Two of the biggest institutional single-family landlords in the United States said Thursday that they planned to merge, an indication that the housing market has recovered much of the ground it lost in the financial crisis. And as home prices rise in many areas, affordable housing, for deep-pocketed investors and young first-time buyers alike, is becoming harder to find…

• Pricing lowest to emerge as bank seeks to compete post-MiFID
• EU ban on free research for clients forces industry overhaul

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is proposing to charge as little as $10,000 a year for equity research, the lowest price to emerge so far, as the Wall Street giant seeks to grab market share when a European ban on free analysis for clients is imposed, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

• Contributors include endowments, foundations, insurers
• Asset manager has invested in military housing projects

True Green Capital Management LLC, an infrastructure asset management firm with more than $500 million under management, raised $350 million for commercial and industrial solar investments.

The Westport, Connecticut-based asset manager closed True Green Capital Fund III on June 30, Managing Partner Panos Ninios said in an interview. The fund was oversubscribed, attracting endowments, foundations, fund-of-funds, family offices and insurance companies. It also attracted more capital than True Green’s two previous solar-focused funds, which together raised $223.4 million…

• Havens in demand as gold, yen advance on Trump-Kim spat
• VIX surges 44% in Thursday session, S&P 500 Index drops 1.5%

Stocks tumbled in Asia, following a U.S. slump overnight, as investors headed for havens from what hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio termed a game of chicken between U.S. and North Korean leaders.

Equities in Australia and South Korea declined after the S&P 500 Index halted an unprecedented stretch of calm on American equity markets and the CBOE Volatility Index soared 44 percent. U.S. President Donald Trump dialed up his warning to North Korea on threats to American allies, lifting gold to a nine-week high and pushing the yen toward 109 per dollar, while Treasuries strengthened. Japanese markets are closed for the Mountain Day public holiday…

• Investors target businesses that enable web, mobile payments
• Record cash piles push buyout firms into new technology

Private equity firms, sitting on record piles of cash, are targeting a geeky corner of the online shopping industry as the next frontier in the hunt for returns.

Payment-processing companies, which make the technology that enables web and mobile purchases, are getting a flurry of investments this year as buyers look for ways to profit from the shift to online spending…

Why Private Equity Is Betting on Your Online Shopping Habit

• Electric-car maker plans first sale of non-convertible debt
• Spending on sedan capacity, battery output burns through cash

Having tapped the equity market eight times for capital over the past seven years to fund Tesla Inc.’s growth — and cover its losses — Elon Musk is turning to the bond market.

Needing cash to finance his audacious bet on the mass production of a more affordable electric car, the Model 3, Musk plans to sell $1.5 billion of eight-year bonds. Tesla officials are meeting with investors across the U.S. this week to drum up demand. The debt sale will test Musk’s ability replicate the fervent following he’s built among stock investors, who’ve bought into his vision of a clean-energy future and pushed the shares up 67 percent this year…

• The risk of concentrated gains in a handful of high P/E stocks
• How an imbalance of power is status quo every year in S&P 500

The U.S. equity market in 2017 has often seemed like the world’s most expensive Jenga tower. Pull out the wrong piece, and the whole thing might crash to the ground.

But is it true? Giant technology companies like Amazon.com and Facebook are dominating indexes to a far greater degree than their size alone would dictate. That’s because along with being big, they’re rising three or four times as fast as everything else…

Lone Star Funds, a big private equity firm that specializes in buying up distressed assets — soured mortgages in particular — is undergoing a shake-up in the management of its North American operations.

Sam Loughlin, who had worked for the Dallas-based firm for nearly nine years, stepped down on Thursday as president of its North American division, the company said. He is being replaced by Nick Beevers, who had been a Lone Star executive vice president and came to the firm in 2011 to run its investor relations operation…

Private Equity Giant Lone Star Shakes Up North American Ranks