Scott Weiner

Like a seasoned magician, Apollo’s Scott Weiner played tricks on the market in 2025 and still emerged as one of the premier players in CRE credit, to the tune of $24 billion. 

Weiner surprised everyone in January when he led the charge to sell the loan portfolio of Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance Inc. (ARI), the firm’s $9 billion publicly traded REIT, to Athene Holdings, Apollo’s $440 billion insurance subsidiary. Questions abounded — was Weiner cashing out of CRE credit? 

Not at all. Like any good prestidigitator, Weiner was simply moving one pocket of capital he intends to play with at Apollo into another, mainly because he could.    

“By no means are we getting out of the business. Those loans are still managed by me and my team,” Weiner said. He said the ARI portfolio has been undervalued by the public market for an extended period of time, and ARI is proposing a shareholder-friendly transaction by selling it to Athene.

“Athene has strong demand for CRE debt as an asset class, and is already familiar with those assets, so we believe it’s a win-win,” he added. 

Weiner and his team won a lot of business in 2025. They originated $24 billion of CRE credit across 120 deals, with $15.4 billion of transactions occurring in the U.S., financing across 39 states in what was a record year of business for the firm. 

“We were very active across property types and geographies, and that’s part of what makes the platform special,” said Weiner. “It wasn’t one deal, or a couple of deals, that led to our success this year, and it wasn’t one property type.” 

Standout transactions included an $840 million takeout loan to finance the conversion of 25 Water Street in Manhattan, a $785 million acquisition loan for RXR and Elliott Management to buy 590 Madison in Manhattan, and an impressive $2.7 billion in U.S. data center pre-release, hyperscale construction.  

Regardless if it’s ARI, Athene, Apollo’s fortress balance sheet or the capital on behalf of third-party investors, Weiner has his choice of roughly $75 billion across Apollo’s many channels for CRE credit investments. 

“It’s a pretty powerful platform,” he said.