You may have heard that alternative asset managers are betting big on the wealth market. This is seen in all sorts of ways, including several new technology platforms, mergers in the asset management space, and the rapid rollout of new limited liquidity funds designed to appeal to mass affluent investors. Those pushing the “democratization of alternatives” are getting in front of advisors to make it happen.
At the forefront of that effort is Stephanie Drescher, head of Apollo’s client and product solutions group. Apollo Global Management is a borderline household name in the investment management business. The firm, recently added to the S&P 500, manages more than $700 billion in private investments. The wealth channel is only a fraction of that volume, but the firm has ambitions. In the past three years, Apollo has spent $1 billion on the effort, growing its internal wealth team to 140 employees.
“We saw an opportunity to complement our mature and very meaningful institutional relationships with new ones in global wealth, for example, wirehouses, private banks, RIAs, independent broker/dealers and family offices,” Drescher said. “I’ve spent the past few years focused on forging these relationships as we’ve created and grown the global wealth platform.”
Apollo has increased its annual pace of fundraising from the wealth channel globally to more than $10 billion, raising a cumulative $27 billion and developing 30 investment vehicles ranging from traditional drawdown structures to newer semi-liquid strategies across credit, equity and real asset classes.
“Before making a strategic commitment to wealth, we offered alternatives on a limited, episodic basis to advisors and their clients through traditional drawdown products,” Drescher said. “Flash to today and we’ve greatly expanded this access through a diversified suite of perpetual, semi-liquid solutions, and other innovative structures. With individuals, our focus is to source opportunities that ultimately deliver excess return per unit of risk, create portfolios of solutions that will help clients meet their goals, and then provide access points that meet the needs of the respective buyer.”
By 2029, Apollo has set a goal of doubling the size of its internal wealth team, raising $30 billion annually from the wealth channel globally and achieving $150 billion in AUM for its wealth-centric products, which could represent up to half of the company’s annual third-party capital raising.
Drescher, who holds an undergraduate degree from Bernard College and an MBA from Columbia University, has a long track record in the alternative investment business. She joined Apollo in 2004 and, prior to that, spent 10 years with JPMorgan Chase, primarily working in its alternative investment group.
“I was drawn to Apollo for many of the reasons that make it such an energizing place today. The entrepreneurial spirit, commitment to innovation and meritocratic culture—these qualities stood out to me back then and still shape my day-to-day experience,” Drescher said. “I could tell the firm was on a path to help redefine the alternatives industry, one strategy at a time.”
But prior to any of that, she said it was her family that had the largest influence on her career.
“The first person who inspired my interest in the markets and finance broadly was my grandmother,” she said. “Born in the very late 1800s and unable to finish her education, she instilled in me the importance of not only education, but also closely following the markets. She lived with my family when I was in high school and, during that time, we all tracked the markets and spent time together learning about companies.”
