Good morning Hubsters, Craig McGlashan here filling in on the Wire. We’ve got some add-on activity to report for you this morning, but before we get to that, we take a look at a couple of reports that augur well for the private equity industry. Comeback After a slow start to the year in M&A, activity in North America picked up in March – helped by several bumper private equity deals, according to new research from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Some of the biggest private equity contributions to the March figure came from Silver Lake and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board agreeing to buy Qualtrics International for around $12.5 billion and Apollo Global Management and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority announcing an $8.1 billion deal for Univar Solutions. There was also positive news for the private equity outlook from BlackRock Alternatives, which released its first Global Private Markets Survey. UK visit Several US private equity companies are looking to the UK for take-privates right now. Over on PE Hub Europe today, we covered the board of ecommerce company THG – formerly known as The Hut Group – announcing that it was “in receipt of a highly preliminary and non-binding indicative proposal from Apollo Global Management”. Read the full version of the PE Hub Europe Dealflow for share price, revenue and EBITDA info on THG. This is the latest in a flurry of take-private attempts for UK companies. Yesterday, we covered another move by Apollo – which is putting its new London office to good use – this time for engineering firm John Wood Group. The two companies have entered talks. Other UK take-private attempts by private equity companies include Blackstone looking to buy Industrials REIT, and Providence Equity Partners and Searchlight Capital Partners entering talks with conference organizer Hyve Group. Network International, a payments company headquartered in Dubai but listed in London, is also the subject of an offer from CVC Capital and Francisco Partners. I’ll be writing a feature on why we’re seeing such a glut of take-privates – and whether the trend will continue. If you’d like to contribute, drop me a note at craig.m@pei.group or reach me on LinkedIn here. Add-on and on Deals-wise this morning, there’s plenty of add-on activity. Here’s two that caught my eye. ClareMedica Health Partners, a primary care services provider for Medicare Advantage patients, completed the acquisition of Plaza Medical Centers, which operates in the same sector. Both companies have several locations in Florida. ClareMedica has been a portfolio company of Denver, Colorado-based private equity firm Revelstoke Capital Partners since February 2022. On the move Switching sectors, and CES Power, a provider of mobile power generation, distribution and temperature control equipment, announced today that it has acquired Echo Technologies Services, a telecoms company working in Wi-Fi, live streaming and CCTV for musical festivals and live sports. Memphis, Tennessee-headquartered CES Power is backed by Allied Industrial Partners, a lower and middle market private equity firm headquartered in Houston, Texas. Echo Technologies is headquartered in Kennesaw, Georgia. That’s all from me – Chris Witkowsky will be on Wire duty tomorrow. Cheers, Craig Read the full wire commentary on PE Hub ... | 