Happy Friday, Hubsters. MK Flynn here with the Wire. While painful for my retirement funds, yesterday’s public market plunge reminds me once again of the resilience of private equity as an asset class. As Bain Capital Credit’s Michael Ewald told me earlier in the week, the mid-market companies most PE firms invest in “tend to be nimbler and have a business model that is niche enough that it won’t ebb and flow just with its industry or the broader economy.” Exit strategy. One of the mid-market deals announced this week that caught my attention was Align Capital Partners’ sale of Protegis Fire & Safety to Summit Fire & Security, a subsidiary of SFP Holding, owned by BlackRock Long Term Private Capital. The deal marks the fifth exit within a year for the ACP, which manages $775 million in committed capital with investment teams in Cleveland and Dallas. To find out more about ACP’s exit strategy, in particular, and the current environment for exits, in general, I reached out to Chris Jones, co-founder and managing partner. Here are some insights: Why is this a good time for exits? “Our pace of exits has increased partially as a function of the firm’s inception date,” Jones said. “Align Capital Partners was founded in 2016 and, as such, we were solely focused on deploying capital and scaling early platform investments for the first 4-5 years. Since its founding, ACP has invested in 14 platforms and closed 53 add-ons. Now that we’ve been operating for over five years, we’re hitting a natural inflection point where we’ll expect to realize a few investments each year. That said, our exits have largely been driven by our portfolio companies generally achieving their growth targets and scaling into much bigger and better businesses – positioning them well for an ownership transition. Further, we believe the exit environment has remained healthy with robust appetite for high-quality companies of scale that are viewed as a good platform starting point for larger PE funds or sizable add-ons for strategic buyers.” For more, read the whole story. Rising stars. Thirteen dealmakers are among the PE professionals recognized in Private Equity International’s 40 under 40: Future Leaders of Private Equity, class of 2022. Published earlier this week, the annual list celebrates emerging talent in the asset class, highlighting individuals set to play a leading role in the market in the years ahead. Among the dealmakers featured is Martha Osier, 39, partner, Adenia Partners. Read about all the dealmakers honored here. And read the full coverage here. Off-duty. Buyouts’ Off-duty column provides a snapshot of top investors, including a few details about what they do when not chasing deals. In the latest one, Kirk Falconer talks to John Maldonado, an Advent International managing partner. As co-head of healthcare investing in North America, he has been instrumental in many of the firm’s top deals, among them Genoa Healthcare, a services provider to behavioral health communities. Genoa, sold in 2018 to UnitedHealth for a reported $2.5 billion, marked an opportunity to “do well by doing good,” Maldonado told Buyouts. An Advent veteran of more than 16 years, and a member of its executive committee, Maldonado has also played a key role in investments like AccentCare and RxBenefits. Read the full story here. Next week, I’ll be writing the Wire from PEI Media’s office in London! We’re expanding PE Hub’s editorial team in Europe. More details on that to come! Happy Mother’s Day everyone! MK Read the full wire commentary on PE Hub ... | 