Apollo Management - History

History

History of private equity
and venture capital

Early history
(Origins of modern private equity)
•
The 1980s
(LBO boom)
•
The 1990s
(LBO bust and the VC bubble)
•
The 2000s
(Dot-com bubble to the credit crunch)

Apollo, originally referred to as Apollo Advisors, was founded in 1990, on the heels of the collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert in February 1990. It was founded by Leon Black, the former head of Drexel's mergers and acquisitions department, along with other Drexel alumni. Among the most notable founders are John Hannan, Drexel's former co-director of international finance; Craig Cogut, a lawyer who worked with Drexel's high-yield division in Los Angeles; and Arthur Bilger, the former head of the corporate finance department. Other founding partners included Marc Rowan, Josh Harris and Michael Gross, who both worked under Black in the mergers and acquisitions department and Tony Ressler, who worked as a senior vice president in Drexel's high yield department with responsibilities for the responsibility for the new issue/syndicate desk.

Less than six months after the collapse of Drexel, the founders of Apollo had already begun a series of ventures. Apollo Investment Fund L.P., the first of their private equity investment funds was formed to make investments in distressed companies. Apollo's first fund raised approximately $400 million of investor commitments on the strength of Black's reputation as a prominent lieutenant of Michael Milken and key player in the buyout boom of the 1980s. Lion Advisors was set up to provide investment services to Credit Lyonnais, which was seeking to profit from depressed prices in the high yield market.

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