Apollo Posts $1.06 Billion Loss Despite Record $114 Billion in Lending
Apollo Global Management lent a record $114 billion in the third quarter, but rate-driven losses at its Athene unit pushed it to a $1.06 billion loss.
Apollo Global Management, the New York-based private-credit and alternative-asset giant, reported a net loss of $1.06 billion for the third quarter on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, even as it originated a record $114 billion of new loans and investments. Unrealized losses at Athene, its retirement-services business, outweighed record fee income, and adjusted earnings fell short of Wall Street forecasts. The shares fell in early trading.
What happened
According to the earnings release Apollo filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the net loss attributable to common stockholders for the quarter ended Sept. 30 was $1.057 billion, or $1.78 a share. In the same quarter a year earlier, Apollo earned $1.71 billion, or $2.78 a share. It made $1.34 billion in the second quarter of 2026.
The company said the swing came mainly from unrealized mark-to-market losses on some investments in its Retirement Services segment, which is run through Athene, as interest rates stayed high. PE Insights, a private-equity newsletter, reported that the segment booked $3.4 billion of investment-related losses in the quarter. When rates rise, the market value of the bonds an insurer holds goes down. These losses are on paper until the assets are sold.
Adjusted net income, the measure Apollo prefers, came to $1.29 billion, or $2.07 a share, down from $2.17 a year earlier. That was below the consensus estimate of $2.22 a share, Investing.com reported. Excluding what the company called notable items, adjusted earnings were $2.15 a share.
Investing.com reported that the stock dropped 3.81% to $114.91 in premarket trading, down from a previous close of $119.46.
Record lending and fee growth
The loss came despite strong numbers across the asset-management side of the business. In figures from the company’s release:
- Origination, Apollo’s term for the loans and other investments it creates for its funds and balance sheet, reached a record $114 billion in the quarter and $356 billion over the past 12 months.
- Fee-related earnings, the steady income from management fees, rose 23% from a year earlier to $802 million.
- Total assets under management climbed 18% to $1.07 trillion, and fee-generating assets rose 28% to $880 billion.
- Inflows were $53 billion in the quarter. Alternative Credit Investor, a trade publication, reported that about $35 billion came from asset management and about $19 billion from retirement services.
Spread-related earnings measure the gap between what Athene earns on its investments and what it pays out on annuities. They slipped to $844 million from $871 million a year earlier. Excluding notable items, they rose 7.4% to $909 million.
“Origination reached a new high of $114bn in the quarter,” Marc Rowan, Apollo’s chairman and chief executive, said in the release, as quoted by Alternative Credit Investor. He added that “our core earnings power is growing.”
What executives said
On the conference call with analysts, executives argued that the business is shifting from investment to growth. “I think this is about revenue at this point,” Rowan said of Apollo’s spending on market infrastructure and new business lines, according to the Investing.com transcript.
Artificial intelligence is drawing heavy borrowing across credit markets, and Jim Zelter, Apollo’s president, said the firm’s AI-related financing has focused mostly on power and chips. He put AI-related exposure at about 2.5% to 3% of Apollo’s holdings and about 3% at Athene. He also said Apollo would likely keep that exposure below index levels. “Never take equity-like risk for debt-like returns,” Zelter said. Rowan added that “FOMO is not an investment strategy.”
Martin Kelly, the chief financial officer, called a $65 million actuarial review in the quarter “typical in the industry,” according to the transcript.
What comes next
Apollo said it expects fee-related earnings to grow more than 20% in 2026 and spread-related earnings by about 10%. For 2027, it is targeting fee-related earnings growth of at least 20%, management-fee growth of at least 15% and spread-related earnings growth of about 10%, Investing.com reported.
The quarter shows a central tension for investors in firms that pair asset management with insurance. Fee income has been climbing fast, while the insurance balance sheet remains exposed to swings in interest rates. Apollo has framed the Athene losses as unrealized and tied to rates. With rates still high, those marks could keep moving reported profit from quarter to quarter.
Apollo also kept returning cash to shareholders. Over the past 12 months it paid more than $1.3 billion in dividends and bought back about $1.4 billion of stock, and it had $2.89 billion left under its repurchase authorization at the end of September, the release showed.
