Apollo is shooting for $1.2 trillion in private loans by the end of the decade

• Apollo aims to grow its private lending business to $1.2 trillion by 2029.
• Asset managers like Apollo are taking over loans once handled by banks, CEO Marc Rowan said.
• Here are 7 slides from Apollo’s investor day that outline the plan behind its $1 trillion plan.

The biggest player in non-bank lending has set a massive new goal: to double its private lending business from $562 billion to $1.2 trillion in five years.

The $1 trillion target has become a high bar for asset managers in general. Blackstone became the first private equity firm to manage $1 trillion in assets last year, while KKR set its own target of $1 trillion this year.

But unlike its rivals, most of Apollo’s growth has come from its lending side, which has been boosted by growing demand for private loans in the face of a banking crisis and the company’s merger with pension provider Athene , which has provided Apollo with the ample capital it needs to make loans.

“All over the world, banks are being asked to do less and investors are being asked to do more,” Apollo CEO Rowan said at the bank’s annual investor presentation on Tuesday.

Indeed, private lenders like Apollo are increasingly offering investment-grade loans to large corporate clients in addition to short-term loans. On Tuesday, Rowan and Apollo’s Deputy Chief Credit Officer, John Zito, pointed to Apollo’s deal with AG InBev four years ago as a defining moment for the firm and a telling moment for the industry.

“When we did the first investment-grade financing for AB InBev a few years ago, many in this room and many of our competitors and most of the street said, ‘This $4 billion is the last $4 billion you’re going to do ever”. Rowan said. “That was $100 billion now and $11 billion for Intel alone. This is just getting started.”

At $1.2 trillion, Apollo will handle as much in loans as JPMorgan Chase did last year, according to data tracker Statista. (Rowan and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon have previously debated the merits of private credit, as BI previously reported.)

Apollo plans to more than double both its private credit and equity businesses by 2029, which would bring total assets under management to about $1.5 trillion. At the last investor day in 2023, it set a goal of reaching $1 trillion in total assets under management, including private loans, by 2026.

Here’s how Apollo plans to grow to more than $1 trillion in private lending alone.