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Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Monday, August 21.

And this is your FT News Briefing.

Some of the biggest names in private equity are having a tough time these days

and Iran is struggling with oil prices that are too low.

Yeah, apparently that's a thing. Plus a severe drought that's affecting

the Panama Canal is causing major headaches for the global shipping industry.

We'll take a look at whether anything can be done about it.

I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day.

Private equity giants are handing over companies they own to lending arms of rivals.

Over the past few months, KKR and Bane Capital let go of portfolio companies to places they

had borrowed from. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs and Carlisles PE units are in the process of doing

the same thing. Private equity own businesses are struggling, partly because some of the debt

used to finance buyouts wasn't hedged against interest rate rises.

But it's not just high interest rates. Private equity groups are also struggling

with supply chain issues and sticky inflation.

While Western governments are struggling to keep fuel prices down,

Iran is facing a very different problem. Its petrol is too cheap.

The leader in Iran will run you just free sense compared that to $1.10 at the pump in the U.S.

or just under two pounds in the U.K. Iran keeps its prices low through heavy government subsidies.

Here to talk about why that's become an issue is the FT's Tehran Correspondent,

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