Apollo raises $13bn for first flagship buyout fund since Leon Black exit

Apollo Global has raised $13bn for its first flagship buyout fund since co-founder Leon Black left the private equity group last year.

The group said by July the fund had attracted more than half of the $25bn in capital it hoped to raise by the end of the year.

The fundraising, which was announced with second-quarter results on Thursday, is being closely watched on Wall Street as the New York-based group works to overcome it Black exited in March 2021 and attract new money for large-scale corporate takeovers.

Joshua Harris, another Apollo co-founder who was behind some of the company’s most successful investments such as the acquisition of chemicals company LyondellBasell, also left during the turmoil after being replaced by another co-founder, Marc Rowan, in Black’s place as manager was passed over.

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The new fund commitments demonstrate that institutional investors believe the group’s performance can continue without Black and Harris and under the leadership of a new generation of dealmakers.

During the second quarter, Apollo attracted $36bn in new assets, a number that didn’t include the $13bn committed to the buyout fund in July after the quarter ended. These inflows took Apollo’s total assets under management to a record $515bn, driving total fee-related revenue up 7 percent to $341m.

The group’s adjusted net income of $639m, a metric favored by analysts as a proxy for the group’s cash flows, represented a 13 percent increase, slightly beating analysts’ expectations.

Apollo has managed to attract new assets to strategies that seek to capitalize on rising market volatility. It raised $24bn for funds ranging from funds investing in market dislocations to others making structured debt and equity investments in companies seeking fresh capital.

Athena, the insurer built by Chief Executive Rowan in the years following the 2008 financial crisis, posted a quarterly record $12bn. Athene accounted for more than 40 percent of the total $110bn that flowed into Apollo last year are.

Source: TheHitch

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