Apollo Global Management is advancing its push to bring illiquid private-market assets onto public exchanges, with CEO Marc Rowan telling investors at the Bank of America 31st Annual Financials Conference on September 23 that the firm expects trading volume for its liquid private-markets segment to reach $50 billion by the end of 2026.
Year-to-date volume has already surpassed $30 billion, Rowan said, giving the firm confidence in hitting its annual target. The effort centers on ATLAS, Apollo's liquid private-credit platform, which is expected to grow to approximately $40 billion by year-end after deploying roughly $30 billion so far.
Rowan outlined Apollo's broader vision for transforming how alternative assets are packaged and traded. Rather than maintaining traditional semi-liquid fund structures, the firm is moving toward products that function like traditional securities — rated, transparent, with daily net asset value pricing and regular-way settlement.
"If we took our whole $850 billion business and dumped it into a big bowl and sliced it horizontally instead of vertically... you would not be in a fund," Rowan said. "You would be in CUSIP securities that are rated, that are fully transparent, that trade, that have a daily NAV, daily price, that settle."
Apollo completed the rollout of daily NAV pricing across its investment-grade credit suite by June 30, with daily pricing expected for the full credit business by September 30. Regular-way settlement is targeted for next year.
The $1.15 trillion asset manager — which carries roughly $300 billion in equity and $850 billion in credit — is also leveraging its insurance arm Athene to generate stable, low-cost capital. Athene operates at a 16-basis-point expense ratio, providing funding at loan-to-value ratios of 35% against non-equity products.
Looking ahead, Apollo has set five-year growth targets of 20% annually for its asset-management business and 10% for retirement. The firm aims to generate long-term earnings of $5 billion from each of those segments. Apollo, which Rowan co-founded in 1990 and has led as CEO since 2021, holds a market capitalization of $73.3 billion.
The company reported 41% revenue growth over the trailing twelve months through Q2 2026, reaching $35.6 billion. Its stock trades at a P/E ratio of 44.4 with a beta of 1.51.
Rowan cautioned that the asset-management industry faces a significant transition period. He estimated that fewer than 20 alternative asset managers have committed to fundamentally evolving their business models, and only about ten have succeeded so far. "We are going to experience more change as an industry over the next five years than we have for the last 10," he said.
Apollo's liquid-markets push comes amid surging capital requirements globally. The firm cited a $4 trillion capital gap in the United States, alongside $1 trillion needs each in Canada and the Gulf region — demand that Rowan argued is well-suited to a more liquid, transparent form of private-market investing.
