Apollo Global Management, Inc. (APO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. My name is Patrick Davitt. I'm the U.S. asset manager analyst here at Autonomous. It's my pleasure to welcome Apollo's President, Jim Zelter. I think it's your first time at this event?

Yes. We did a lot of swapping around this year.

Yes, yes, yes. It's good to have you for the first time. I will miss Marc, but obviously, great to have you. As a reminder, if you have any questions, you can submit those through pigeonhole, and they'll show up here, and I'll try to throw them in as we have time.

Jim, to start, given that we have most of the major alternative managers here, I'm starting with kind of similar high-level macro questions. Obviously, the courts threw another wrench into the mix we have right now last night. But I sense there's still a lot of concern about sticky inflation, higher for longer rates, slowing economic growth, a mix that could be particularly bad for levered risk assets, what's your latest thinking at Apollo on those issues? And what are you seeing in the portfolios at this point from an economic standpoint?

Sure. Well, great to be here. I would say, and I know Trost was on this morning talking a little bit about it, but there's a confrontation about slowing economy and inflation, which I think this pads to the dialogue and increases the level of that dialogue. And as an investor, it's actually a really interesting time to be an investor right now. Trying to predict D.C., that's an impossible task. But I would say we're in an environment where rates are obviously a bit higher and we think are going to be stickier. And the results contrast from the sentiment. We've all read about the major contrast. And sentiment is not great, but the actual numbers have been pretty strong. So we actually don't mind this economic backdrop. Rates, I think, are going to be a bit higher for some time. And we are seeing lots of conversations. I'm sure we'll talk about the private credit industry, the concept of a bubble. But overall, interesting time to be an investor, a lot of hammering, but at the same time, a lot of really interesting things to invest in right now.

With that in mind, you noted on the call minimal, kind of direct exposure to tariffs in the portfolio. But I think most people are more worried about the second and third order impacts. Are you seeing any inflation pressure, revenue growth pressure in the portfolio at this point?

When we think about our portfolio, at any one point in time, we own 75 plus or minus PE companies and lend the 4,000-plus RA lender or a debt holder to 4,000 companies. And when you look at our watch list year-over-year on the broad 4,000, there's not a material pickup. There's a few sectors that we're watching some areas in enterprise software, areas like that. In the PE business or in the equity business, when you have 50 to 75 holdings, there's a couple that have been well publicized because lots of imported cost of goods sold. But no, I mean, I would say we're not seeing broad brush. Certainly, when you think about the employment and the economy and how much is in health care, education, entertainment, lodging, you certainly have to have some concerns about some of the actions of the President on the education system, how universities are going to respond to that, but -- which is the second and third derivative of that. And so I do think the assumption that we're going in with right now is you're going to probably have lower-than-trend growth. So if trend growth has been 2 to 2.5, this 1, 1.5 is probably the ZIP code. I don't think -- I think the to and froing of the administration in the last 4 to 6 weeks and last night, it's going to really amplify that likely outcome. And for us, it really has been about modulating the risk temperature and the risk appetite versus being a lender and compounding with base rates at 4.5 or 5 versus equity in a levered capital structure. Equity and levered capital structure, you have to be really, really confident right now. And I don't think that's a surprise. That's just good risk management and logic right now.

Makes sense. So let's step back on the industry and the outlook, think about broader changes that we've seen across the markets over the past decade. What do you think will drive the next legs of growth for the alternative industry in Apollo?

Well, I think, certainly, everyone in the room has a view that fundraising is going to continue to be more challenging. And we would occur -- we would concur with that view. And I think that if you take a step back, like we laid out last year at our Investor Day, it's really more about the big trends, and I'll use a couple of comparisons. But we laid out clearly that the 4 massive drivers of our industry, the continuing pension deficit issue around the globe, the continuing growth in retail, global wealth channels, the third is the massive needs of the global industrial renaissance. And fourth is really this whole public private convergence. And when you add on to that consistent underperformance by many managers, as well as a more challenging fundraising environment, we think that's the -- the next stage of this industry will be continued consolidation, continued -- the winners are going to get a greater part of the spoils. So we're building each one of our businesses to make sure that we are a very large, competitive and we have a right to win and a reason to win in all those businesses. The only thing I would say is we spend so much time talking collectively about what happens day-to-day in the economy, and we should. We've all become -- since the GFC, we've all become global macro investors. But I would just throw out, one of the things we try to do is we try to take a step back and as we are asked constantly asked about the -- is there a bubble in private credit, which I'll get to, we try to think about areas where there's been a massive over allocation of capital to an industry. And I go back to dark fiber, '97, '98, '99. I go back to the shale boom in '13 to '15 in the U.S., the pharma roll-ups, Mallinckrodt, Valiant. And then you get to enterprise software in terms of all the roll-ups and all the PE activity. And now you have to ask yourself about what's going on in data centers. And we think about those because we saw how cheap debt, i.e., junk bonds, fueled a lot of those manias and making sure that we don't get caught up on that. So for us, we're really focused on the 4 big trends. Every one of our businesses, you asked me earlier if I've been traveling a lot. All 4 of those drivers are in full tilt on mode. And so we feel very good about just executing our plan in our business model.

So it sounds like you still foresee a pretty significant industry consolidation either organically or inorganically?

Yes. I mean I -- when I say -- when we say consolidation, I'm not sure it's going to be a ton of M&A because I ask myself, how many public alt managers does they really need to be? And then I also asked like when I thought -- I thought there was going to be a tremendous amount of consolidation with CLO managers that had 3 or 5 CLOs, but were locked out of doing the next generation, and they just held out and ran the business off. So I don't know. I think if you are a $30 billion to $50 billion manager in credit or real estate or PE, and you've got to make a decision, do you want to stay private and bespoke or do you want to be part of something bigger, I think the -- this is like the seventh grade dance, who's sitting on each side of the floor and who actually ends up dancing, it's actually very few. So I do think that the -- obviously, you saw what BlackRock did last year. I think there's going to be some consolidation, but I'm not sure how much consolidation there will be to actually end up in the public markets.

Certainly more from the GP consolidating...

I think so. I think so. But also you have a big trend, more and more of the largest LPs are taking on GP activities. If you look with the largest investors in the Middle East, the largest investors in Asia, they own minority stakes and some asset managers, you see what's going on in the insurance space. So there -- it's not the same type of consolidation. But as Marc and I have both said, what BlackRock did last year was a great boon to our business because it put the conversation about private capital going into portfolios. I don't want to say it legitimized it because it already had been legitimized, but certainly, it really amplified it by -- for no doubt.

Okay. I think much to your shagrin, people are probably too focused on the insurance side of your business is obviously great and important. But what are...

I wouldn't mind if it traded 25x. Trading at 8x, I scratch my head, but I understand that.

So I want to ask some questions on the asset management side of the business first. What areas of your asset management business are scaling the fastest right now? What do you think is driving that? And what areas would you highlight that you're most excited about that might be underappreciated by the market?

So I think we took -- when we sat back over the last 3 or 4 years and thought about the proverbial, where the puck is going and what has happened in the small pond of private credit, i.e., corporate direct lending and the advent of that business over the last decade next to high-yield and leveraged loans, certainly, we took a page out of that, and we were very early in asset-based finance. Our vision behind it, our experience investing in the Athene portfolio, our purchase of the Credit Suisse securitized products business. That is one where I believe that we are a clear market leader. We have experience. We have scale. We have origination. And if you look at the broad, broad capital formation across the institutional business, the insurance third-party business and the global wealth platforms, clearly, we are out in front, and I believe there's a variety of other firms that are hot on our tail. But we are perceived as a clear market leader with a lot of upside. And what we like about it is the scale of the business and the investment-grade backdrop of the business. And again, I'll be very clear. I don't think there is a private credit bubble, but there will be a private credit cycle. We need one. I'm not saying it's going to happen in '25. We look forward to happening sooner because I think it will clear out a lot of the fringe players and fringe activities. But I do not see a bubble in the private credit area, nor do I see one in back to the asset-based finance business. The area that I think is not appreciated yet and has a tremendous amount of upside with us is we really are in 2 broad businesses at Apollo on the asset management side. We really are in the credit business, and we're in the equity business. There's a large area in between that we have, coined the moniker, the hybrid business. And some of that hybrid business is the extension of the riskier side of the credit business. Some of it is on the less risky side of the equity business. And between those 2 businesses, some people call it capital solutions, some people may call it core equity. I think that's an area that we are massively underappreciated, and I do think we've done a variety of moves over the last 12 months to bring teams, people, leadership, mandates, capital raising together. And I suspect, as we think about our origination over the next 12 to 36 months, the whole area of hybrid is going to benefit. And it's going to benefit not only because we brought those together, but the big macro moves are a few. One, I think there has been a secular/permanent change in the IPO capital formation. We can talk about that. I think that you look at the PE overhang. You look at the demarcation of asset managers in terms of how they get compensated, how they get rewarded. They get rewarded for the highest return, not the best risk-adjusted return. Bank prop balance sheets or prop balance sheets of the banks have been shut down. So all those activities would say to yourself that this area of hybrid is the area of the most intrigue and the greatest opportunity. And so that's one that I think is underappreciated. The last I would say is going to global wealth. We are extremely fortunate to have developed a tremendous amount of products, semi-liquid, drawdown, evergreen, et cetera. I do think the big push to broader portfolio solutions, more turnkey solutions with a variety of products, I think that's something that's going to be where the puck is going in our business. And I suspect you'll see a variety of activities that will be launched over the next 12 months in that area as well.

Okay. We'll hit on a few of those in more detail later. I do want to follow up on ABF and hybrid, in particular. I've heard from others that the education process for more traditional institutional LPs like pension funds has been a bit longer than you might have expected for things like ABF even though it's investment grade. And I suspect the same is true for hybrid. Where do you think we are in kind of getting those big pools of capital more on board, designating more money to some strategies?

On the area of ABF, which we would also coin, is fixed income replacement, very early innings, like second inning. You're having conversations with CEOs and CIOs about how they think about their fixed income portfolio, how much liquidity they actually need, what's the -- when you think about where they've actually made money in the past, it was a view on duration. And certainly, I think that there's been a broader embrace of trying to take a portion of that portfolio and increase the overall return with 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% allocation to either bank loans, some degree of traditional private credit, i.e., direct lending, but the bigger opportunity really is the adoption of broader ABF strategies. And so I think about where we are with, I think, other insurance companies, I think the insurance industry has clearly woken up. A lot of partnerships we've got in excess of 20 insurers that now have a great partnership with us. We've been very public about Mass Mutual and a few others. So I think insurers overall have embraced it to a degree sooner. So they're probably at the fourth inning. But I think traditional investment-grade managers around the globe, very little in the Middle East, a little bit in Asia, a little bit in Japan and Hong Kong, just a little bit in Australia. So hence, a lot of my travel, but I still think early days. On the hybrid side, I think there's a lot of conversations about how people are going to think about their PE and equity allocations. A lot of the more sophisticated investors had a PE allocation, then they started a co-investment allocation, and then they started a secondary allocation. I think the returns over time, over the last decade, I think they've been very strong for secondaries. They've been solid for PE, they've been less solid for co-invest strategies. And I think there's a variety of conversations that are going on from large managers, how do they optimize that -- those strategies better? How do they bring it together in one more unified versus then competing for pool? So I think there's an early -- I think that's even earlier in the maturity than the asset-based world.

Makes sense. And while we're on LP allocation questions, there's been a lot of chatter around how LPs might be thinking about moving their allocations post Liberation Day, in particular, moving away from the U.S. to non-U.S., et cetera. Are you seeing any major changes in your discussions with LPs and where they want their money to be particularly geographically?

I happen to be fortunate to be up in Canada of the days of the first 2 tariffs. And I took a lot of brunt of commentary about the administration. Certainly, I think there was initial reaction, initial concern, very upset. Then I think the reality of portfolio allocation comes to play. I was in Australia a month or so ago. The super funds, $4 trillion assets, $4 trillion in assets going to $6.5 trillion. The Australian economy has 22 million people. So the economy is 22 million people. So what I'm really getting at is the ability for them to write large, large, massive checks and allocations is more limited. They can't just do it domestically. There will be some portion of the marketplace, 10%, 15%, 20% that says it's just a bridge too far, and they're going to wait. But I think the vast majority are still -- it hasn't impacted our fundraising to date, but I think you have to be realistic about some potential impact, yes.

There's one question from the audience on a more specific issue with LP allocations, question on the puts and takes of universities needing more liquidity versus a new desire for long-term income to minimize new taxes. Any thoughts on that?

Well, I think the endowment model is pretty well allocated to alternatives. Now they have a -- the -- and I know from my own personal case, my involvement, most universities were drawing 3% to 3.5%, and now they're 5%, 5.5%. And so there is a greater demand on that endowment in terms of the ability to make future commitments. I think broadly speaking, though, the endowment model had not, for the most part, had allocated away from large public managers. They, over time, the last 20, 30 years, have been much more smaller/private managers. And I do think the endowment model between private equity, venture capital, real estate and hedge funds, they have 30% to 60% private liquid allocation. So I don't think you are going to see more of them in the future. I do think there's going to be some interesting financing that those folks look at. Certainly, many have gone in and used the municipal market to finance and to bridge because they are high ratings. But I don't think it's going to have a massive impact on the alt business overall.

Makes sense. Let's pivot to retirement. I think you could argue, Apollo is one of, if not the kind of best mousetraps to help solve the global retirement crisis. Aside from the obvious demand for annuities that should come from that, what kind of products is Apollo creating to attack this problem?

So we've talked a lot about lifetime income products, a variety of other savings products that, from our business model right now, as you said, we were early to this industry opportunity. And I want to remind folks that while there is a lot of new players in the industry, the ability for us to be able to fund raise on the liability side, retail, reinsurance flow, organic, inorganic as well as PRT. There's a variety of fundraising channels we have today also geographically around the globe, whether it's Japan, other parts of Asia and in the U.K. And so certainly a variety of more capital-efficient products are on the drawing board. And I suspect that we've got a lot of folks that are actually thinking about the future more so than our peers. But nothing to talk about specifically today. But certainly, as we -- as you know, our business, what retail played 10 years ago versus what retail plays today, and that distribution channels in the U.S., I suspect we have a few more clubs in our bag to play over the coming 24 months.

On that, Empower recently announced the new kind of managed account 401(k) product, including private market sleeves. I think Apollo was the only pure-play large U.S. alternative manager named as one of the providers for that product. So could you give us more detail on how that's going to work, who it's for? And more broadly, where do you think we are in terms of getting that safe harbor you need or the industry needs to develop more products for a 401(k) investor?

I can't talk a lot about that in particular, but I can say, it's the second largest provider in that space next to Fidelity. They touch a tremendous amount of individuals. And I think that type of structure, with well-structured yield or capital appreciation product but done so in a thoughtful, diversified manner, I think those are going to be real accelerants to our business. And I think those are great examples where most of us look within the sandbox of opportunity, the next new fund, the next hybrid fund. But certainly, as we've seen in global wealth, once you get on a channel, the ability for not only your brand, your experience, your technology, your education can have a tremendous amount of impact. And so that type of DC adoption. I think we are in an environment where you clearly have the administration that this -- the freeing up of the department of labor directives and the safe harbor, that would be consistent with this administration. I think we all have to be very careful. I think we've been focused on making sure that the appropriate governance and direction of alternatives are provided in those channels. We've leaned more to robust compounding safe yield, then we have the wide array of potential alternatives. We think that's the more rational way and appropriate way to approach the opportunity set. But I think Empower is a good example of partnerships where we clearly feel that we are the parts provider. We're not going to go to a D2C model. That's not our business. And our business really, whether it's traditional, whether it's folks like Empower, whether it's other folks along that value chain and have access to retirees, we want to be a parts provider to them.

Makes sense. I think that dovetails nicely to the wealth business. Clearly, you guys have gained a lot of traction there quite quickly. Where do you think you are in terms of building out the product suite and building out the distribution, both in the U.S. and non-U.S. channels?

Well, I could spend all of my time, I came yesterday, we had one of our global wealth off sites yesterday, about 300 people. We feel our product set now, in the last 4 years, has reached the point that I wouldn't say it's complete, but we feel like with our semiliquid products, we think about our products across Europe, Luxembourg, all the breadth of LTIPs, we feel that we are as competitive as anyone out there in terms of the breadth of our products, again, leading more into the evergreen robust yield, keeping the band of outcomes to an arrow band. So I -- when I look at our progress from 0 to $4 billion to $8 billion. This year, our number we've been out, $16 billion, $17 billion. I believe that, that -- those numbers are very achievable for us. And I just see the broader and broader multiple adoption of that business. So I think we're more excited. Certainly, it's very enjoyable to make sure you have a global business. And we are not forgetting about Japan and Europe and even the Middle East and Latin America. But the U.S. is the home market of so much adoption. So we clearly feel that we are in that second spot, second/third spot in terms of broad adoption. We think there's going to be a handful of winners. But we are investing massively in Japan and other parts of Asia. Australia, we have now distribution. A lot in Europe. So I feel all the pieces have come together, and now it really is just about executing the business plan. So we feel very good about our position. Our performance has been very strong. And we've done so without reaching. And this is a very important point. We made a point in ADS, which is our flagship vehicle. It started 3 years ago. It's now to $20 billion. They'll be a $20 billion vehicle before the year is out. We had the least amount of leverage. We have a dividend yield that is not the highest in the industry. We have been very loud and vocal about the lack of any kind of PIK income in the vehicle. And so I think it's an example where doing it in a manner which is going to allow us, when there is a credit cycle, to retain assets. People forget in the global wealth business, yes, you are in the business every day of bringing new assets in. But different than the institutional business because the drawdown structure in institutional versus the evergreen or submarine liquid, you're also in the retention business. And that ability to retain assets between performance, performance, performance, education, dialogue and our ability to make sure that we are consistently out in front with our brand, that's going to be the winning formula. And I think that many of our partners, the distribution partners, they don't want to be at the hest of 1 or 2 suppliers, they want to have alternatives, no pun intended. And I believe that we have been a very, very capable counterparty to many of them. And we're also doing things certainly with what we did with the State Street partnership with PRIV, what we're doing with Lord Abbett. I think we're showing an ability to be able to make sure we have a very, very strong stand from the Apollo standpoint, but also recognize that there's parts of the marketplace that we're not going to touch directly. And if we can, again, be that appropriate parts provider as the seasoned experienced pro in the industry, which we clearly are a category killer in the world of credit, that's our perception, that's been our experience, that's been our success. I think that's a winning formula for the broad adoption globally.

You mentioned ADS. There's a question on the pace of deployment there when you're taking in so much money each month, how do you deploy that if the deals aren't there and prevent past drag when you're taking in that much money?

Yes. We've gone -- we've definitely had a view that we want a lot of origination partners. ADS is a clear beneficiary of the Citi partnership. For us, yes, we have a lot of direct dialogue with sponsors from Apollo, but also from MidCap. And with our 12 bank partnerships, not all of them are public. We feel that we are balancing out, and we've grown dramatically. If you look at our collective direct origination from sponsors over the last 3 to 4 years, not only in direct lending, but in NAV lending, other GP solutions to them, we become more relevant. And I do think -- I think that's an important subtlety. If you are just a solution provider to sponsors with one product, I think that would be a more relevant question to ask us. I think if we're able to talk to sponsors in the U.S. and Europe on the globe about how are they funding their growth, are they thinking about growing a CLO business, we can be helpful there out of our Redding Ridge platform. So I think having just a much broader product toolbox to interface with those sponsors, I think that's what allows you to be 1 of the 2 or 3 folks that's going to get the lion's share of the activity, and we've seen that to date.

Okay. Fair enough. You mentioned the ETF with State Street. I think there was news about another product with State Street yesterday. What was the impetus for launching another one so soon when it seems like the uptake of the previous one has been so slow?

Well, I would say the other one has not been slow. It's been the experience of many others in the past. In the world of a variety of ETFs, first 3, 6, 9 months, they -- $50 $100 million, $150 million, they sort of bounce along the bottom. And then once there is the -- you've shown that the product actually is robust, can deal with the create and redeem, that fracking air is fairly narrow. I think there's a broader adoption. Look at the Janus AAA CLO ETF that was small for 24 months, and now it's $20 billion in size. So I think it's our view that there's a variety of short, medium, long-term duration. There's a variety of credit quality, and we certainly want to make sure that we are out there establishing that beach fund property and putting our stake in the ground. So I think it's really just more of an establishment of a broader platform that we would like to have.

Okay. One last one wealth before we move on. Post Liberation Day, one of the key concerns we've kind of heard from investors is the volatility of retail demand when the markets get this way. Are you seeing any noticeable downturn or uptick in redemption requests through the post Liberation Day volatility?

Zero to negligible uptick redemption request. A little bit softer April, but May has been a good strong month again. So maybe a little bit slower, but nothing of noticeable trend. The year-to-date numbers internally, we are still committed to, and I still feel quite strong about that.

Anecdotally, any signs from your distribution partners that the opposite could occur that people -- if they're pulling money out of the market, say, would use some of these products as a place to park money?

Yes. Well, I wouldn't say park. I do think the broader adoption of the semiliquid vehicles or a broader adoption of alternatives across the board is continuing to increase. I'm sure many of your participants here today, the large U.S. wires, the large investment banks in their global wealth channels, the numbers are still -- I was in Hong Kong and Australia had a variety of meetings, 6 to 8x the size of this in Hong Kong, in Tokyo. And I still feel like it's very, very early days yet. So part of just broader portfolio strategy. The view of equity returns has certainly a bit more muted after the last decade or 2. And I think as the demographics that we've been talking about, older population looking for income in the stay wealthy business versus the get wealthy business, I think the stay wealthy business is a much broader opportunity for the -- for us and our peers.

Like that term, stay wealthy.

Yes. I mean I think when you go out and talk to most of the high producing or financial advisers at the larger firms or even the larger RIAs, I think that's why you're going to see a greater adoption of strategies that are in the robust compounding evergreen yield. Making 27% and 2.2x your money is great, but many of their investors do not have that -- they probably have the desire, but not the appetite. And so I think really trying to create more of a balanced approach is going to be a broader success over time.

For your brand. Makes sense. Let's move to origination and the investment environment. I think the deployment discussion on your last call was probably one of the most constructive takeaways. You described the pipeline as never being broader or wider. So let's dig in on those dynamics. How has the pipeline evolved through the recent volatility? And what are the most interesting opportunities Apollo is seeing in that kind of post Liberation Day environment?

Yes. Well, I would say Atlas, which is the renamed vehicle at -- from the old Credit Suisse business, that is ramping nicely, and our 5-year plan, we feel very confident. Spreads have still been on the origination side behind 300 over and the -- above 300 over and the financing costs are continuing to come down. So Atlas is still a great performer. MidCap has had another strong year. Those are 2 that are standouts. I would also say that our solutions products for financial sponsors in terms of NAV lending. NAV lending has had a very, very strong year, and that's where funds that have not been able to monetize their PE holdings take out a loan 10%, 15%, 20% LTV against that pool of assets. You basically may have a single A-rated risk and are making excess spread. The -- so that's the third area that I would say is strong. And the fourth, high-grade capital solutions, the predecessor of the transaction for AB InBev and Intel and Sony, those are a bit chunky. They've been pushed back to the second half -- the second and third quarter, really the third and fourth quarter, but we still feel very good about the dialogue going on there. As still major CapEx initiatives and the public markets, yes, being open, but not being opened for scale solutions. So feel good about many contributors, there's not just 1 or 2. And I feel that the numbers that we put out in Investor Day in the last fall, we're going to make meaningful progress this year against those, such that the 5-year goals will seem clearly within reach.

Great. There's a perception in the market that a lot of what we're talking about here today was a result of regulatory stresses on banks. So I've heard -- I'm increasingly hearing a concern that the opposite bank deregulation will lead to increased competition now for you in a lot of these businesses. What is your updated thinking on that bank disintermediation opportunity and potential for the growth outlook to be impacted by deregulation?

I'll just put into one number. So last week, JPMorgan had their Investor Day, they talked about lending to NFSIs -- NBFIs, and that went up 22% year-over-year. And so I hear a lot of cheddar, but that's just like the black and white result. And I think that was the largest year-over-year growth in any of their lending platforms. So no doubt, the regulatory pendulum probably swung too far to an extreme, where the successful embracing of the most successful banks and financial institutions was a bit more muted. But -- and no doubt, I think that they appropriately should feel very good about the outlook of their business. That being said, the cooperation, the dialogue together, the partnership has never greater. I have spent quite a bit of time with the 4 and 5 largest institutions with their leadership or their origination teams, so we're trying to figure out broader solutions together. So while I do think that their ability to operate in a less regulated environment, whether it was the supplemental capital ratios or otherwise, will be not as punitive. I do not see them vastly, vastly changing their business models and the success of their stocks, their ROEs, their business models have been refined, and I think there will be some around the edges, but I don't see it massively changing our business.

I want to ask a couple. We managed to avoid insurance this long. I have a couple on that before some conclusionary questions. You recently revised the SRE outlook for 2025 and provided some drivers that fed into that. So to level set, are you still confident in achieving the 2029 SRE outlook that you laid out at Investor Day? Has anything changed that would permit you from achieving this?

I don't believe so. I think we've been -- we had our Investor Day in the fall. We're fairly comfortable. We have a very large, robust multifaceted business with -- on the asset side, broad brush origination, and on the liability side, a variety of distribution channels. So the long-term plan is still in place. You talk about products like Empower. I think we're on the early days of that. And when we think about our objectives to which -- our tactics to achieve that goal, I believe we'll have more tools, more products, more business lines to be able to include. And I think that things like Empower and D.C. we're not even part of our business plan for 5 years in terms of the financial metrics. So yes, wholly endorsed the multiple 5-year plan in terms of what we're putting forth.

One piece of -- that fed into the new guide was competition in the annuity channel. Could you update us on the dynamics there? Any sense that that's abating? And what do you think needs to happen to make that a more constructive environment from a competitive standpoint?

It's -- while it's a very easy business in terms of the basics of assets and liabilities and putting a construct, new entrants, to be able to really generate a mid-teens ROE, it's easy to win business, but then how you execute it, how you originate, how you put the -- or the assets against those liabilities, it's not an easy exercise to execute over time. So no doubt, a bit more competition on the front edge right now. We are trying not to be and we have never been a short-term maximizer of profits. We're not determined to hold on to market share for dear life. We're going to do logical activities. But right now, we're finding great success with new bank distribution channels that yes, there is some competition that we have to be cognizant of, but I don't think it's having a material impact to the business.

So we've talked a lot -- about a lot of great growth opportunities here. When you sum it all up, you get to 15% to 20% FRE growth this year, 20% plus longer term. For those here that might not be as familiar with the story, could you quickly unpack the key building blocks to the confidence in that view?

Well, I would say in our business today, of our $800 billion of assets, we manage $800 billion plus on the asset management side, which generates a fee-related earnings that between the strategies that I've talked about today, the broad brush activities and the macro drivers of growing retirement needs around the globe, growing pension challenges around the globe, growing global wealth, we feel very, very comfortable that assets coming in will drive that business strongly. At the same token on the Athene side and the Athora side, which is around $400 billion of assets today, we have strong views that a highly rated fixed annuity provider, that basically on this side of the business, you either work for a management fee or 1 in 10, 1 in 15, we make basically 40 and 100 over here, 40 basis points in 100, we think that's a very robust business model. And when you go through cycles where fundraising is more challenging, the ability to have both legs of that driver, I think, will be a competitive advantage versus other peers. And I think that our ability to be a solution providers, really at the intersection of retirees from around the globe, whether at funds, whether individually, whether part of DC plans, DB plans and companies needing capital, I think that's a very intersection for us to be a brand, dominant player in. And we've done so with a very rigorous investment overdrive. So I think we've got major tailwinds that are very, very strong. As we joke a little -- I could spend 24/7 on origination. I can spend 24/7 on global wealth and parts of the globe. And we have a very, very deep bench to execute that along with Marc, myself, Scott and Jim Belardi. And so we're as confident in our business and confidence in our 5-year plan as we were last fall when we put it together.

As you look across all those drivers, what are the few or 1 or 2 that you would point to that you think you're potentially being overly conservative in your guidance and could start growing much faster than what you've been talking?

I think the whole Athene business. I think that when we started Athene, the idea of being it was to buy runoff portfolios. And now when we think about Athene, we had -- if we're intellectually honest 12, 13 years ago, no vision at retail and that could be that size. And so I think there's a variety of seeds that are being planted on more products that we talked about at the Athene business model that may not be as capital heavy, if you would, or capital necessary. And I also think that on the asset management side, the broad degree of portfolio solutions and turnkey solutions -- one of our biggest drivers now are traditional asset managers that are coming to us post the BlackRock purchase of those 3 businesses and spend $25 billion, $30 billion, not every traditional asset manager can do that. And they recognize the skill set that we have, the brand that we have. So being able to leverage that and to be an SMA provider, a parts provider, I think those are overlooked in the growth of our business.

There's been some chatter about you developing market-making capabilities for private credit. Could you update us on the effort there? And maybe help us understand what the net positive is from making an asset class that is sold as illiquid being a positive, making that more liquid?

Well, I'll just quickly. When we talk about market making and private credit, it's not focused on the noninvestment-grade direct origination side. It really is when we do these large investment-grade solutions and we bring in 20, 30 other investors along with us, it's to provide transparency and an ability for liquidity on those, whether it's the Intel, the Sony, the AB InBev, some of our NAV lending and other structured credit. So it's really on the investment-grade side. And I believe that many investment-grade CEO, CIOs with a degree transparency and understanding of how the secondary market operates to some degree, if they want, I think gives a level of comfort. And when I think back into the loan market, the broadly syndicated market was a syndicated market where it was a syndicate and hold market. And through Jimmy Lee and JPMorgan over the last 35 years, it's become a massive tradable asset class. And we do think that portions of the private IAG marketplace, the advantage will be on the origination side. That's where the spread will be captured. And I do believe there will be greater adoption by many investors if they have a degree of, yes, I like this. I'm getting incremental spread. I know the trade-off that I'm making. But if I ever do want to sell a piece, there's a mechanism for me to do so. I think that will result in more and more activity. And so you go back in history, whether it was rate derivatives or credit derivatives, these were all done for portfolio protection, and then they became a larger market. So we don't mind operating in the corner with a handful of folks, a handful of investors, a handful of peers, a handful of investment banks. And in 3 to 5 years, this will grow -- have grown into a very nice machine for us.

Let's end on capital. I think one of the big takeaways from Investor Day, both the last 2 Investor Days was a hope or anticipation that you would do more share repurchases, which hasn't really come through yet. Maybe remind us on your capital return priorities. You just did a small acquisition of Bridge. And what it would take, I think, for us to assume more incremental capital generation being used for repurchases?

Well, we were very clear in our plan. It was a 5-year plan, and it was really back ended the years 3, 4 and 5. So we have opportunistically bought back some shares. We've certainly increased our dividend. But the real capital generation of the plan was really in '27, '28 and '29. So we're still on plan. We have great aspirations. We are very clear about that number was, but nothing makes me feel like we're off plan by any means right now.

Great. Okay. We'll leave it there. Thank you so much, Jim.

Thanks for the time today. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you.