AI is incredible. They can teach you how to fry an egg and even write a poem, pirate style.

But it knows nothing about your work. Slackbot is different. It doesn't just know the facts.

It knows your schedule. It can turn a brainstorm into a brief and it doesn't need to be taught.

Because Slackbot isn't just another

AI. It's AI that knows your work as well as you do. Visit Slack.com forward slash meet Slackbot

to learn more. The views expressed on this podcast are those of the participants, not of Rogers News.

Welcome to the views room. I'm Rob Cox, the editor of Breaking Views, a financial

commentary wing of Reuters News, coming to you this week from Times Square in Manhattan.

For the first time in a year, I sat down face-to-face and without face masks, mind you, with

John Foley, our U.S. editor.

John and I discussed a series of deals announced over the past week in the United States

involving the biggest names in private equity, including Blackstone, KKR, and Carlisle.

We specifically went over three transactions that each carried a slightly different flavor

from the old-school leverage buyouts of the past.

The deals were in descending order of magnitude,

the 34 billion buyout medline industries,

which supplies gowns, gloves, and drugs to health care providers by Blackstone, Carlisle, and Helmut, and Friedman.

The 10 billion take private of QTS Realty, a giant operator of data centers by Blackstone as well,

and a KKR unit's merger with a public company, Contango Oil and Gas, giving an enterprise value

of about $6 billion.

As you hear from John, each deal contained an innovative wrinkle and a lot less debt than

your grandfather's LBO.

...