Prediction Not checkable as stated
Marc Rowan predicts disastrous returns for private equity enterprise software deals
“I personally expect the returns from private equity in the ground to be disastrous. Because so much of exposure is to enterprise software, and this does not mean that enterprise software companies are going out of business. Far from it. It means that the prosp…”
Opinion
Rowan: University protests are fundamentally anti-American and anti-system
“Israel, Palestine is not fully an anti-Semitic issue. And that's not what I saw at these universities. I saw it as an anti-American, anti-system issue.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Marc Rowan predicts blue-collar ascendancy and white-collar decline from AI
“What I've said previously is I think we're going to see a little bit of blue collar ascendancy and white collar decline.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rowan: Vast majority of UPenn donors reduced annual donations to $1
“Vast majority of donors decided to give the university a dollar per year versus whatever their donation was.”
Disclosure
Rowan: Apollo hires based on individual merit and distance traveled
“We've stuck with the same formula. We hire for merit. Adjusted for distance traveled. And distance traveled is not about your immutable characteristics. It is about you as an individual, not your class, not your group.”
Disclosure
Rowan: Apollo's climate investment policy permits financing hydrocarbons
“We're gonna make it better, not worse, but if that includes financing hydrocarbons, we're gonna finance hydrocarbons.”
Opinion
Rowan: Private markets are the only remaining source of investor diversification
“And so if you're an investor and you're looking for diversification, there's no place to get it other than private markets.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Rowan: Apollo assumes AI will replace or enhance every job
“We operate under the assumption that every job is going to be replaced or enhanced.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Rowan: Five banks and five tech firms will dominate fixed income
“And so the same thing, by the way, is happening in the global fixed income market dominated historically by 10 large banks. It's about to be dominated by five large banks and five large tech companies. As much concentration as exists in the equity market, That…”
Insight
Rowan: Alternative asset managers are limited by origination capacity, not capital
“We are not limited ultimately by capital. We are limited by our capacity to create.”
Prediction Held up
Rowan: Apollo investment grade private products will offer daily pricing by June
“And so, we're starting with our investment grade private suite of products, and we will be daily estimated value by June 30.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Sep 2026
Rowan: Apollo will expand daily valuations across entire credit business by September
“This is about creating an ecosystem, and by the end of September, this will be across the entirety of our credit business.”
Prediction Open · timeframe May 2027
Marc Rowan predicts credit spreads will widen from AI concentration
“I think spreads are gonna widen.”
Insight
Rowan: Financial firms die from funding risk or bad assets
“Financial services firms die from one of two causes. Heart attacks or cancer. Heart attack is funding risk. If you lend long and borrow short, you have funding risk.”
Assertion Supported
Rowan: Credit makes up 80% of Apollo's assets, private equity only 10%
“80% of the assets under management are credit, and the vast majority of that is investment grade. And the other two hundred billion, or 20% of it, half of it is what we call hybrid equity, partner-like equity, and half of it is traditional private equity in a …”
Insight
Rowan: Transparency and price discovery expand market size tenfold
“I've never seen a market in the world where you have transparency and price discovery that is not 10 times its size.”
Assertion Supported
Rowan: Tech and industrial giants dominate private investment grade issuance
“But if you think of the largest issuers of private investment grade, it's Intel, it's Air France, it's EDF, it's AT&T, it's Meta, it's BP Energy, and so on, and you're hearing lots of public companies.”
Assertion Contradicted
Rowan: 30% of private equity capital went to enterprise software last decade
“30% of the private equity industry over the past decade has been devoted to enterprise software.”
What-if
Rowan would repeat his public campaign against UPenn leadership identically
“But on balance, I would do it all again in exactly the same way.”
Insight
Rowan: Apollo fires employees for ignoring mistakes, not making bad decisions
“You do not get fired here for making a bad decision. You get fired here for not recognizing it, or not owning it, and not fixing it.”
Assertion Contradicted
Rowan: Top 10 stocks account for nearly 50% of S&P 500
“10 stocks right now in the US are nearly 50% of the S&P, and they're all levered to the same trend.”
Insight
Rowan: Investment firms cannot scale without serving a fundamental societal good
“When you are a small firm, you can be a good deal shop. But when you want to get large, you have to serve a fundamental good, otherwise the societal pressure, the government regulation, the forces around you constrain you.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Rowan: Industrial companies will stay private longer
“We, we're gonna see the same thing happen with industrial companies. Lots of industrial companies are just gonna decide to stay private longer for all the reasons we know.”
Insight
Rowan: Credit management demands total risk aversion unlike equity investing
“In credit, you only get your principal and interest. You should not be around risk taking. As a rule, you should be fully diversified. In the equity business, you actually get paid for risk taking.”
