Bert Crouch

Has it been one heck of a year for Apollo Real Estate? You “Bert!” 

Bert Crouch made headlines when he joined the firm in October, and for good reason. Apollo has a $130 billion real estate business between credit and equity, and so the industry veteran was stepping into a top role at one of industry’s biggest forces. 

Crouch’s move came just one month after Apollo sealed its acquisition of alternative investment manager Bridge Investment Group in an all-stock deal valued at $1.5 billion, adding even more oomph to his arrival and firmly driving home the firm’s conviction on the equity side.  

“We recognized that we needed to evidence a commitment and make a splash, and we wanted to do it around a theme where the firm was already convicted,” Crouch said. “It’s been transformational for us and complements all of our other business lines, but we’re just getting started. We’re going to compound the Bridge acquisition by continuing to build out thematic verticals. We’re in advanced discussions right now to add build-to-rent and cold storage.” 

Despite its magnitude, Apollo is somewhat under the radar relative to the depth and breadth and capabilities of its platform, Crouch said: “I think one of the better kept secrets in the real estate space is the size, scale and capabilities of what we have at Apollo Real Estate.” 

Let’s dig in a little to catch people up: Its private equity business is foundational to the firm, and Bridge is now an integral part of those capabilities. Then, there’s the credit side of the business, led by Scott Weiner, which racked up $24 billion in originations in 2025 alone. But what many don’t know is the firm has also done over $100 billion in transactions on the infrastructure side, acquiring Stream Data Centers late last year to further its presence in the digital infrastructure space. It has also executed around $1 billion in land banking via Olympus Housing Capital and owns a top 25 homebuilder — Risewell Homes — through its private equity business. 

“When you roll all of it up, we are very much at scale, and a significant player in the three secular thematic convictions that we’re organizing the business around,” Crouch said.

Those themes are living and housing — not just the supply issue but being part of the solution as far as affordability; demographic shifts in North America around longevity, aging, health care and retirement; and reindustrialization.

Case in point: Apollo just raised a $1.4 billion closed-end value add logistics fund — Bridge Logistics Value Fund II — in June. “This is Bridge powered by Apollo,” Crouch said. “We supercharged their fundraise, their best-in-class track record, and we’ve supported them with additional data, insights and analytics. They’ve  been able to do more with less, especially with their additional firepower to harness opportunity in areas that might have been out of favor before, but where we still feel like we’re picking up real value.”