Last Thursday I played hooky from the newsletter so that I could attend a charity breakfast with a bunch of Boston-area investors. And most of them asked me the same question: What really happened at OpenView Venture Partners?

• As we previously discussed, the 17-year-old firm suddenly suspended investing in new companies, despite having only committed around 20% of a $570 million fund that closed earlier this year. It also laid off most of its employees.

What really happened, per multiple sources: When OpenView began raising its new fund, LPs were told that it would facilitate a generational transition from Scott Maxwell (who co-founded OpenView in 2006) and Daniel Demmer (who joined in 2013).

• Top management would include both Maxwell and Demmer, but also younger partners Blake Bartlett, Mackey Craven, and Ricky Pelletier.
• But cracks soon began to form, particularly as fundraising proved more difficult than expected (it had targeted $800 million).
• The first came when second-level partner Devon McDonald left in January. Then, just weeks after the fund closed, Pelletier announced his departure.

Fast forward to early November, when Mackey Craven — who led the firm's very successful Datadog investment — told his partners that he was leaving. This didn't trigger the keyman provision, as three of five top partners remained, but the margin had tightened and LPs weren't getting what they'd been promised.

• Bartlett was out on sabbatical when Mackey quit, and was suddenly faced with being OpenView's only transitional leader. He decided that wasn't what he'd signed up for.

That left a major choice for OpenView: Ask most employees to stick around while they devise a new generational transition plan that might (or might not) appease LPs, or give them guaranteed months of severance.

• It chose the latter.

The bottom line: The decision is certainly open to second-guessing, particularly ahead of the holidays, and more than one LP is annoyed that the decision was made at the GP level.

• But it's also one that seems like it was intended to make the best of a very bad situation — in which LPs had committed to an investment team that no longer really existed.

Source: Giphy

Macy's (NYSE: M) received a $5.8 billion takeover offer from an investor group that includes Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management, per multiple reports.

Why it's the BFD: It was only a matter of time. Macy's has been the occasional target of both activist investors, who've pressured the company to monetize its real estate, and other potential acquirers.

By the numbers: Macy's has over 500 U.S. locations, and the $21 per share offer represents nearly a 21% premium to last Friday's closing price.

The bottom line: "Its cultural significance outweighs its diminished size, owing to the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and extravagant window displays at its stores in New York City around the holiday season." — Lauren Thomas, WSJ

• SumUp, a London-based provider of mobile point-of-sale solutions, raised €285m. Sixth Street Growth led, and was joined by Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, Fin Capital, and Liquidity Group https://axios.link/3RCWyfV

• Rokid, a Chinese maker of AR glasses, raised $112m in Series C funding at a $1b valuation led by NetDragon. https://axios.link/3Tp4N0t

• Actility, a French provider of low-power industrial IoT connectivity solutions, raised €16m from Bpifrance, BNP Paribas, Bosch, Cisco, and Swisscom. https://axios.link/3RBKV8M

• Carro, a Singapore-based online car marketplace, is in talks to raise over $100m in pre-IPO funding, per DealStreetAsia. Existing backers include B Capital, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Insignia Venture Partners, and Golden Gate Ventures. https://axios.link/3th9wX6

• DAZN, an international sports streamer backed by Access Industries, is seeking to raise up to $1b in new funding, per Bloomberg. https://axios.link/3GAYvD5

• GlacierPoint, a Bronx, N.Y.-based portfolio company of Mill Point Capital, acquired Cool River Beverages, a Bronx-based specialty beverage distribution platform. www.glacierpointenterprises.com

• Hildred Capital Management is expected to buy bankrupt baby brand Hello Bello, which was founded in 2019 by Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, per Bloomberg. https://axios.link/47NKNZF

• Molior Growth Partners, a Denver-based PE firm formed by Ben Schnakenberg (ex-Bow River Capital, High Road Capital Partners), made its first acquisition: Western Storage & Handling, a Denver-based provider and installer of material handling and storage equipment. www.moliorgrowth.com

• Morrow Sodali, a New York-based portfolio company of TPG Growth, acquired Domestique, an Australian corp comms and reputation management consultancy. www.morrowsodali.com

🚑 Partners Group agreed to acquire Velvet Care, a Polish maker of hygiene paper products, from Abris Capital Partners. www.velvetcare.com

• Permira agreed to acquire GGW Group, a German insurance brokerage for SMEs, from Hg. www.ggw.de

• RedBird Capital Partners and Skydance Media CEO David Ellison reportedly are in talks to acquire control of Paramount Global (Nasdaq: PARA) from Shari Redstone. https://axios.link/3Rkmrzy

• Stone Point Capital and General Atlantic offered to buy the 15.2% stake they don't already hold in Nashville-based employee-screening company HireRight (NYSE: HRT) for $12.75 per share (3% discount to Friday's closing price). https://axios.link/3t16cQ4

• Surge Private Equity invested in Coastal Amusements, a Lakewood, N.J.-based maker of coin-operated ticket and prize redemption games. www.coastalamusements.com

• Tax Systems, a British portfolio company of Bowmark Capital, acquired TaxModel, a Dutch provider of tax compliance software. www.taxsystems.com

• TPG's Rise Fund is in talks to buy Outcomes First Group, a British provider of special education services that's currently owned by Stirling Square Capital Partners, per Bloomberg. https://axios.link/3tbkJIW

• Marex Group, a British commodities broker, plans to go public in New York over London, per the Times. It could be valued at more than $1.8b. https://axios.link/3NlGTPy

• Sotheby's, the auction house owned by Patrick Drahi, is no longer planning to go public, despite having picked bankers, per Bloomberg. https://axios.link/3RAH245

🚑 Vaso, a Plainview, N.Y.-based med tech company trading OTC, agreed to be acquired at a $176m pro forma equity value via Achari Ventures Holdings I (Nasdaq: AVHIW), a SPAC that was originally intended to target the cannabis industry and which is trading at just a couple cents per share. https://axios.link/3v38dLS

• Corsair Capital agreed to sell a 50% stake in its infrastructure business, which has $4.8b in AUM, to Investcorp. https://axios.link/3Tr7VbQ

⚡ Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY) agreed to buy CrownRock, an energy producer focused on the Permian Basin in West Texas, from Lime Rock Partners for around $12b. https://axios.link/41lD96f

🚑 Chemist Warehouse, an Australian pharmacy chain, agreed to go public via a reverse merger with smaller rival Sigma Healthcare (ASX: SIG) at an A$8.8b valuation. https://axios.link/41efFjz

⚡ Endeavor Energy, the largest private oil and gas company operating in the Permian Basin, is seeking a buyer for upwards of $30b, per Reuters. https://axios.link/3RdwiHz

• AnaCap raised €300m for a continuation fund that will cover German insurance broker consolidation platform MRHT and tax services SaaS provider GTT. www.anacap.com

• Harpoon Ventures of San Diego raised $125m for its fourth early-stage fund focused on dual-use tech startups. https://axios.link/3GDEHPC

• Wynnchurch Capital of Illinois is targeting $3b for its its sixth buyout fund, public pension docs.

⚽ Zlatan Ibrahimović (aka Ibra), a retired soccer player, joined RedBird Capital Partners as an operating partner. He'll also be a senior adviser to AC Milan. www.redbirdcap.com

Cigna shares soared at this morning's open, on news that merger talks with rival health insurer Humana have ended.

• Both companies had seen stock slumps since word of the negotiations first leaked late last month.