Apollo Misses Earnings Estimates, Achieves Big Quarterly Fundraising

Apollo Global Management (APO) missed its earnings estimates in the first quarter, but is poised for future growth with an aggressive fundraising start to the year.

The private equity giant reported first-quarter adjusted net income of $1.12 billion, or $1.82 per share, which was below analysts’ estimates of $1.93 a share. The performance still marked a 6 percent improvement from the year-ago period when Apollo achieved adjusted net income of $1.06 billion, or $1.72 per share for the 2024 first quarter. 

Apollo set itself up for stronger quarters ahead by raising $26 billion in the first three months of 2025 and another $10 billion in April, according to the firm’s CEO Marc Rowan. 

“We invested that money more in cash, in Treasurys, in agencies, and paying down leverage,” Rowan said during Apollo’s investor earnings call Friday morning. “That is not without its cost, but it sets us up well in a volatile market.”

An active first quarter for Apollo saw it acquire Bridge Investment Group in an $1.5 billion all-stock transaction expected to close during the third quarter. The company said at the time that the acquisition was designed to expand its real estate originations business. Bridge, a $50 billion real estate investment firm, has specialized in residential and industrial assets since its founding in 2009.

Martin Kelly, chief financial officer at Apollo, said on the earnings call that the Bridge acquisition will provide “immediate scale” to its real estate originations infrastructure and provide a particular boost to its real estate-oriented platforms with Ares Management and Athene Holdings. 

Assets under management at Apollo rose to $785.1 billion as of March 31, 2025, from $751 billion at the end of 2024 and up 17 percent from the year-ago period.  It also posted record gross organic inflows for the first quarter of $43 billion. 

Rowan said the tariff policies enacted by President Donald Trump on April 2 will not deter future growth, noting that Apollo was one of the largest buyers of assets since the announcement with $25 billion worth of assets purchased last month alone, largely in public markets.

“Public markets were the fastest to adjust from a price point of view and exhibited what we expect to see going forward: limited liquidity,” Rowan said. “We expect extreme price volatility to the point where sometimes public markets offer better returns on a risk-adjusted basis than private markets.”

Andrew Coen can be reached at acoen@commercialobserver.com