Michelle Stromberg.
Michelle Stromberg, 32
The commercial real estate industry owes some thanks to two of Michelle Stromberg’s teammates on the college track team. She was pre-med at Princeton, enjoying the interaction between math, critical thinking and psychology, when those teammates asked if she’d considered finance as the marriage of those skill sets. On “a bit of a whim” she took an internship at JPMorgan, and loved it so much she ended up spending nine years there before joining Apollo in May 2021.
She hasn’t looked back since.
“At the end of the day, we all like to do deals with people that we like and trust, but you need both the technical and the personal skill sets to be successful,” she said. “Every real estate transaction has its own story and, when I look back at the diverse experience real estate finance has given me, I don’t think there’s anything quite like it.”
Today, Stromberg is an originator on Apollo’s debt team responsible for covering various markets and sponsors — plus the Street for mortgage co-origination and B-note and mezzanine opportunities — and also head of capital markets for Apollo’s real estate equity business, which includes the firm’s nontraded REIT, Apollo Realty Income Solutions.
The ability to leverage the full strength of Apollo’s interconnected and dynamic platform has proved invaluable as Stromberg transacts on both the debt and equity sides of the business.
Stromberg counteracts any choppiness-aggravated stress through running and sports in her spare time. Still, with a flexible balance sheet, Apollo is finding plenty of chances to lend today. As one example, the dearth of capital in the A-note space, as traditional participants have pulled back, has presented additional opportunities to originate senior loans on quality assets.
“We’re very much originating loans today,” Stromberg said. “We’re always disciplined in our underwriting, but in uncertain times it’s even more important to make sure our underwriting reflects realistic market fundamentals and projections.”
She recently worked on Apollo’s $85 million purchase of the Hilton Times Square, a 478-room hotel that was shuttered during COVID. “I’ve worked on many hotel deals on the debt side, but this was a really interesting and complex deal from both the equity side and the structuring of the financing,” Stromberg said.
In terms of the firm’s appetite for — and approach to — New York real estate more broadly, Stromberg said “on both the debt and equity side, we’re always focused on basis and thoughtful structure. We have some exposure to New York, but we think it’s like no other city in the world.”
Ready, set, go!—C.C.
