Inflation fears ramp up, Ares agrees to acquire The Lockwood Group, Softbank leads $122m funding round in DICE

Happy Monday!

This is Chris, on the Wire for Sarah, who is heading to Chicago today for a conference.

Inflation worries are getting worse, as ships remain jammed up in the Port of Los Angeles, the automotive industry continues to suffer from a chip shortage and Europe and the UK (and perhaps the rest of the world?) are bracing for an energy crisis as there’s not enough fuel to meet demand. This has sparked fears of blackouts and factory closures, which would impact products across industries.

According to Bloomberg, European gas prices surged by almost 500 percent in the past year amid historically low levels in European storage facilities, and limited pipeline flows from Russia and Norway.

We talked about inflation months ago, when there was a hope that the economy would kind of … sort itself out. That bottlenecks would clear, and goods would get flowing again. But here we are coming into October, and everywhere you look, there’s shortages.

How is this affecting your business, if at all? Back when I spoke to a bunch of GPs about potential persistent inflation, the reaction was positive — this was a normal reaction to an explosion of pent-up demand. Has that changed? Hit me up at cwitkowsky@buyoutsinsider.com.

Confirmed: Ares Management agreed to acquire The Lockwood Group, which comprises multiple agencies specializing in medical communications, writes Sarah Pringle today on PE Hub.

The company works with clients in pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device industries to identify science-based strategies to address their objectives through medical communications.

Lockwood joins a North American healthcare portfolio that comprises Aspen Dental, CHG Healthcare Services, DuPage Medical Group, OB Hospitalist, Press Ganey and Unified Women’s Health, Sarah writes. Read it here on PE Hub.

Mover: Paul Van Hook, co-head of Credit Suisse’s fledgling capital solutions group, is leaving the bank, sources confirmed for Buyouts. The capital solutions group, formed last year, combined the bank’s GP-led secondary advisory services and its capital sourcing work for direct and co-investments.

Van Hook was moved into his current role last year along with Jeremy Duksin, a fellow managing director at the bank. The capital solutions group was formed to combine the bank’s GP-led secondaries advisory activity with its efforts to source capital for direct and co-investments.

Other executives on the team include Jonathan Abecassis, who oversees secondaries advisory in the EMEA and Asia regions, and Dirk Jonske. Another member of the team, Sameer Shamsi, who led secondary advisory work in the US, left the bank this year to lead secondaries advisory work at Houlihan Lokey.

The bank recently hired two secondaries professionals from Lazard: Adrian Siew as a director and Gabrielle Kim as a vice-president. Read more here on Buyouts.

That’s it for me! Have a great start to the week. Reach me with tips n’ gossip, feedback or book recommendations (I’m just finishing up re-reading of Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism“, which doesn’t make for the most pleasant reading experience) at cwitkowsky@buyoutsinsider.com or find me on LinkedIn.