At a rally in Detroit earlier this month, Donald Trump told the crowd that his upcoming speech at the World Economic Forum would tackle one of his core issues: affordability. But the address he delivered in Davos yesterday was not quite what he'd telegraphed. In what my colleague David A. Graham described as a 'stump speech,' the president strayed from that focus, roaming from Arctic defense to the Minnesota fraud scandal to the policies of 'Sleepy' Joe Biden. When he returned to the topic of affordability, he claimed that grocery prices are 'going down' (they're not) and that drug prices have declined by '2,000 percent' (they haven't). Although Trump campaigned on the economy, weak polling has recently spurred new plans to make life in America more affordable. At one point, Trump plugged a plan to curb predatory lending practices by capping credit-card interest rates at 10 percent'but the deadline (proposed on Truth Social) for the policy to go into effect had passed the day before. Trump also used his speech to promote his plan to lower housing costs, which he recently unveiled in an executive order. The policy is aimed at preventing corporations from buying up single-family homes, and has bipartisan support. These proposals were a blip in his 80-minute speech before he quickly pivoted....

A year into Donald Trump's second term, the Department of Justice has become his private law firm, devoted less to the impartial administration of justice than to blackmailing, intimidating, and persecuting Trump's foes while selectively enforcing the law to spare allies who break it. The chairman of the Federal Reserve reveals that the Justice Department has been attempting to blackmail him into lowering interest rates with the threat of a federal indictment. The governor of Minnesota, the mayor of Minneapolis, the former head of the FBI, the attorney general of New York, and a member of the Federal Reserve Board all face indictment or investigation for opposing or challenging the president. The decision to ignore evidence that demands investigation or prosecution can be equally nefarious, as we've seen in Minneapolis, where federal authorities refused to investigate a masked government agent for shooting an unarmed mom in the face, and where half a dozen federal prosecutors have since resigned after being pushed to investigate the woman's widow instead....

People familiar with the matter said North America Fund XIV could reach its $22bn hard cap when it holds a final close in the first quarter, following about 18 months in market. If achieved, the fund would represent a record for KKR's Americas private equity strategy. The firm raised $19bn for the previous vintage. KKR began marketing the vehicle in June 2024, at a time when higher interest rates and slower exits weighed on investor appetite for large buyout funds. Despite those headwinds, the firm's private equity unit has remained a core earnings driver. As of September 30, KKR's private equity business generated a trailing 12-month return of 10%, making it the firm's top-performing segment after infrastructure. Realised carried interest rose 50% in the nine months to September, co-chief executive Scott Nuttall said at a financial services conference in December. 'We keep reading all these headlines about how it's really hard to raise money, and we're having a record fundraising year,' Nuttall said. 'What we're reading about is not consistent with our actual results and our actual experience.'...

Portfolio sales by limited partners reached about $120bn, remaining the largest driver of activity. At the same time, transactions led by private asset managers jumped roughly 50% to $106bn, fuelled by the continued rise of continuation funds. While buyouts continued to account for the bulk of secondaries activity, Evercore said private credit, infrastructure, and venture strategies are playing a growing role. Private credit accounted for about 11% of general partner-led secondaries volume. The expansion reflects the impact of higher interest rates, which have slowed exits and cash distributions, forcing both investors and fund managers to seek alternative routes to liquidity. Evercore noted that some managers have begun creating so-called 'CV-squared' structures, rolling assets from one continuation vehicle into another. Subscribe to our Newsletter to increase your edge. Don't worry about the news anymore, through our newsletter you'll receive weekly access to what is happening. Join 120,000 other PE professionals today....