Asia Pacific stands out as a key growth engine in Apollo Global Management’s ambitious push to increase its global wealth assets fivefold by 2029, according to Stephanie Drescher, who revealed the plans in an exclusive interview with Asian Private Banker.

At the firm’s investor day last year, Drescher, chief client and product development officer at the US$785 billion investment manager, outlined Apollo’s goal to grow assets under management for its wealth business from about US$30 billion to US$150 billion over five years. She described the global wealth platform as “extremely well-positioned to turbocharge the business.”

“And by 2029, we anticipate that the global wealth business could represent 50% of our third-party capital raise,” Drescher said, adding that individual investors are “grossly underallocated” to the opportunity in the private markets space.

Since then, APB caught up with Drescher, where she underlined Asia Pacific’s role in achieving the firm’s US$150 billion ambition. “Asia will play a meaningful part in that growth,” she explained. “APAC as a region is a very high priority for us in wealth. It has been and it will continue to be as we continue to grow with the markets.”

“Even as one of the largest managers in the space, we are still a small fraction of the market and believe there is significant growth and opportunity ahead”

Asia opportunities

Since establishing its wealth business in Asia just over four years ago, Apollo has rapidly become a prominent alternative investment house for wealth clients in the region under the leadership of Edward Moon, partner and head of APAC global wealth management.

Apollo’s wealth management division raised US$12 billion globally last year, with Asia contributing 20%, Moon said. The firm started developing its wealth business in Asia by focusing on Hong Kong and Singapore as key markets, capitalising on the strong ecosystem in these regions.

Looking ahead, Moon believes the next major opportunities for alternatives will be Japan, Australia, and Korea. These markets are “poised to step up in terms of acceptance of alternatives”, he said.

Moon was named APB’s inaugural Distribution Partner of the Year at APB’s Asset Management Awards for Excellence 2025.

Investment in global wealth 

Drescher noted that Apollo has made meaningful investments to accelerate the growth of its global wealth business and plans to double the resources dedicated to the segment globally.

As part of this push, the firm has built out a comprehensive suite of semi-liquid products. Today, Apollo’s product shelf includes 12 strategies spanning private credit, private equity and real assets.

“We have invested US$1 billion of our balance in the wealth ecosystem to drive the transformation of private markets infrastructure for Apollo and the industry. We will continue to demonstrate our long-term commitment with the goal to increase efficiency and enable broader access,” she said.

“There are so many applications for private markets, and our strategy is to meet clients where they are, make sure that we are delivering our best investment capabilities in a bespoke manner that meets their needs and evolves with them,” Drescher added.

One of the standout additions to Apollo’s wealth offering over the past year is its asset-backed finance strategy. Drescher is seeing a growing pipeline of highly specialised opportunities across the private credit spectrum, from investment grade to direct origination to asset-backed finance.

“We are uniquely positioned among GPs (general partners) in this space, having spent over 15 years building origination platforms that generate high-quality, proprietary assets. As the ecosystem evolves, asset-backed credit continues to resonate with clients as a natural complement to traditional corporate credit in building a diversified portfolio.”

Is private credit a bubble?

Amid growing concerns in global markets about whether the booming private credit market might be a bubble, Drescher pointed out that many GPs still represent only a small fraction of the estimated US$40 trillion in market opportunities.

“While private credit markets have matured, many still view the addressable market as a smaller subset of around US$1.7 trillion, mostly middle-market lending. We think about private credit as a much broader opportunity, nearly US$40 trillion, which could be anything from private investment grade to corporate origination, to asset-backed.

“Even as one of the largest managers in the space, we are still a small fraction of the market and believe there is significant growth and opportunity ahead,” she highlighted.

Drescher explained Apollo has always taken a disciplined approach to managing its portfolio, maintaining low leverage and PIK (paid in kind) exposure while upholding high credit quality. “Across each dimension, we have positioned ourselves to generate attractive returns with low volatility, and we remain confident in how we have underwritten the portfolio and the outcome for our clients.

“We believe in strong alignment and invest alongside our clients in the strategies that we manage. So while we can’t guarantee the outcome, we guarantee a shared outcome,” Drescher said.

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