Apollo Global Management Company Profile

by Frederic Leer-Salvesen

Apollo Global Management is an American based private equity investment firm. It is managing more than $57bn which ranks it amongst the world's largest PE-firms. The firm specializes in LBOs and purchases of distressed securities involving corporate restructuring and industry consolidations. Among its most notable companies are AMC Entertainment, Harrah's and Norwegian Cruise Line. In the bid for Sara Lee, Apollo has teamed up with two other PE-firms, TPG and Bain.

TPG (Texas Pacific Group) is managing about $48 bn. Some of those investments are in partnership with Apollo, however they have been doing a lot more co-operations with one of the competing bidders for Sara Lee, Blackstone. It is thought that TPG focuses on the companies no one else wants, however transparency is not one of the core values of PE-firms, so their investment philosophy is at best a qualified guess. They were first well known after turning around Continental Airlines in the 90's, making a $66 million investment into a $600 million profit in three years.

Although Apollo is leading the three partners in this bidding, Bain Capital is the largest of the three PE investors with about $65 billion in assets under management. Bain have several co-operations with the other two firms, and unlike the others, some of their main investments are in food services. Well known companies in Bain’s ownership are Burger King, Domino's Pizza and Toys R Us.


Sources:
http://www.agm.com/OurBusiness.aspx
http://www.tpg.com/about.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPG_Capital
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E5DE123CF936A1575BC0A9649C8B63
http://www.baincapitalprivateequity.com/