Apollo Global Management Inc at Bank of America Financial Services Conference Summary

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : <_ALACRA_META_ABSTRACT>So Apollo was founded in 1990 by several partners from Drexel Burnham with a focus on private equity. Apollo also pioneered the alternative insurance model with the creation of Athene, and many of its large-cap peers have since replicated its strategy. The firm now manages more than $700 billion in assets under management and is one of the five largest alt managers in the world. And from 2018 to '24, Apollo more than doubled its fee-earning AUM. So Scott, maybe we get started with the macro setup. We've entered year three of the bull market. IPOs are expected to take off. Credit spreads are quite thin. There's record money marketing on the sidelines. What are your expectations for both transaction activity and fundraising this year?

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : So private credit has been the big outperformer in terms of investment performance and flows the last couple of years. But a few things have changed. Base rates have come down a little bit, spreads have contracted. And last year in the retail side was the first time private equity outperformed private credit in a very long time. So what I'm getting at is flows. Do you expect to see a pivot start to occur from private credit to private equity, infrastructure equity, maybe not today but down the road, real estate equity? Or is these conversations still too early?

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : Scott, what are your biggest focus areas this year?

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : So if we look beyond 2025 and we think about your long-term growth targets, maybe just refresh us on what are the key targets and what are the key things you need to do to get to those targets.

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : Scott, one follow up there. If you do -- if you would announce a large acquisition or something sort of unusual, would that impact your targets? Would you have to raise your targets because of that?

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : So your biggest flagship fundraise is starting to come into site, maybe not the first half of this year but maybe sort of 12 months from now. The last one you raised, this is buyout Fund X, I think, around $20 billion. You raised it in a tough backdrop. I mean there's a number of factors, including denominator effect and sort of not a lot of liquidity out there. What is your thought on this one? Could this one be a lot bigger than the last one, especially given the long-term track record you have that's very good?

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : So this year, your FRE growth targets, 15% to 20%, a little bit below average because no flagship in there. Next year, you do have a flagship. I mean that fund is a step wise step-up in your sort of FRE at that moment. So I think '26 looks pretty good. Besides Fund XI, are there any other kind of sizable fundraisings that we should be thinking about the next couple of years, whether it be AAA or ADS or a drawdown like Hybrid Value?

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : So let's move into retirement. So Marc Rowan had this amazing idea more than 15 years ago, and he used the old AmerUs business out of Aviva to sort of create this, put a good management team together with Belardi, Wheeler. And that's done tremendously well for you guys. Now since then, some of your peers have replicated your model. Arguably, maybe only one has origination capabilities that are close to yours. But what's important now, I think, what are your competitive advantages in that model to sort of fend off competition?

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : So another competitive question, but some of your peers are out there with very high-growth targets. And when they say grow, they're really focused on similar businesses of Athene, fixed annuities, fixed indexed annuities. Now sales have grown a lot for this industry in the last couple of years because interest rates are higher, it's more attractive. We don't know where the 10-year is going in the future. But as all your peers try to grow, how do you think about the risk of competition intensifying from here? And could that put pressure on ROEs or your spreads down the road?

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : So I wanted to pivot into the international markets. You have Athora in Europe, you have some other partnerships, including Challenger, FWD. Now at this moment, I think excluding Japan, where I think things are going very, very well, rest of those markets are a little more uncertain. And I know you've moved those states also to a different location. I'm just wondering, what's the state of the union in Europe and Asia? Can you really replicate this model and grow successfully there? Because there's different characteristics in each of those markets.

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : Scott, I have to hit on retirement because I think Marc Rowan is probably one of the earliest to talk about the opportunities for privates going into the retirement channel. So post the election, I wanted your thoughts on this. What do we need to see on the regulatory front first? And what could that open the doors to? And if we don't see that, you're still working on some things now like in interval and trust vehicles. What could we see absent rulemaking from the Department of Labor, the SEC?

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : I have one more question, then we're going to open it up to the audience. But I wanted to talk about the potential for deregulation in the financial services sector. For 15 years or so since the financial crisis, banks have had to give away a lot of businesses. They lost some people. And my entire coverage has kind of been a beneficiary of that. Do you expect some migration of that back? I know it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle in a lot of these. And I think Marc, on the earnings call, said something interesting. I think consensus was that if anything comes back, it might be more on the ABF side. I think Marc's view was corporate direct lending actually might be an area where the banks would compete more aggressively. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. FEBRUARY 11, 2025 / 1:50PM, APO.N - Apollo Global Management Inc at Bank of America Financial Services Conference

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : Great. At this moment, let's see if there's any questions in the audience. Please raise your hand, and we can get you a mic.

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : Any last questions? Unidentified Participant Talk about Athene's [expansive] growth in Japan. It's got a retirement system (inaudible).

Question: Craig Siegenthaler - BofA - Analyst : I think with that, we are out of time. So Scott, on behalf of all of us at Bank of America, thank you very much for joining us.