--- alias: - Apollo Advisors - Apollo Global Management Inc - Apollo Global Management, Inc. category: Private Organization created: 2026-06-20 location: New York, New York relations: - end: 2021-01 fn: 4 reverse: true role: company counsel for the Epstein/Black review start: 2020-10 type: represented with: '[[Milbank]]' summary: Private-equity and credit firm founded in 1990 by Drexel Burnham Lambert alumni, whose co-founder Leon Black's payments to Jeffrey Epstein led to a 2021 board review, his departure, and a Senate investigation. tags: - Organization - Apollo - PrivateEquity - LeonBlack - JeffreyEpstein - DrexelBurnham - Finance updated: 2026-09-25 --- Apollo Global Management is an American alternative-asset management firm founded in 1990 and headquartered in New York. It was built by [Leon Black](/people/leon-black/) and other alumni of the collapsed investment bank [Drexel Burnham Lambert](/organizations/drexel-burnham/) into one of the largest managers of private-equity, credit, and insurance assets in the world. The firm's co-founder and longtime leader, Black, resigned as chief executive and chairman in 2021 after the disclosure that he had paid [Jeffrey Epstein](/people/jeffrey-epstein/) about 158 million dollars for tax and estate advice, a relationship that prompted an independent board review, a U.S. Senate investigation, and, in 2026, shareholder suits alleging the firm concealed the extent of the ties.[^1][^2] ### Founding From Drexel Apollo grew directly out of the 1990 bankruptcy of Drexel Burnham Lambert, the firm where Black had been head of mergers and acquisitions alongside the junk-bond financier [Michael Milken](/people/michael-milken/). Black founded the firm, initially called Apollo Advisors, with the former Drexel executives Josh Harris and [Marc Rowan](/people/marc-rowan/), and the early partnership drew in other Drexel veterans including Tony Ressler, who later left to found Ares Management. The firm assembled a team experienced in high-yield debt at the moment the junk-bond market was distressed and many such securities could be bought cheaply.[^3] One of Apollo's formative transactions was its role in the acquisition of the junk-bond portfolio of the failed insurer Executive Life, whose assets were taken over with financing from the French bank Credit Lyonnais. Federal authorities later alleged that Credit Lyonnais had illegally used front companies to acquire the insurer in violation of laws barring banks from owning insurers, and the matter produced one of the largest such settlements, in the mid-2000s. Apollo and Black profited substantially from the distressed portfolio, and the deal established the firm's early returns.[^3] ### Growth, Credit, and Athene Apollo expanded from distressed-debt investing into leveraged buyouts, corporate private equity, and a large credit business, growing to hundreds of billions of dollars in assets under management. The firm listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011 under the ticker APO. Black served as chairman and chief executive throughout this period and became one of the wealthiest figures in American finance and a major art collector and museum patron.[^3] A central part of Apollo's later growth was its relationship with the annuities and retirement-services company Athene, founded in 2009 and managed in close affiliation with Apollo, which supplied a large, permanent capital base for Apollo's credit strategies. Apollo and Athene completed an all-stock merger in 2022, folding the insurer fully into the firm and making retirement-services and insurance assets a core of the business. The combination gave Apollo one of the largest pools of insurance-linked investable capital among alternative managers.[^3] ### The Epstein Scandal and the Leadership Transition Press and investor scrutiny of Black's financial relationship with Jeffrey Epstein led Black to request an outside review at an October 20, 2020 board meeting. The board's Conflicts Committee, three independent directors, retained the law firm [Dechert](/organizations/dechert/), with Milbank acting as Apollo's own counsel. Dechert's memorandum, dated January 22, 2021 and filed with the [Securities and Exchange Commission](/organizations/securities-and-exchange-commission/) on January 25, 2021, reported a review of more than 60,000 documents and interviews with more than twenty witnesses, including the co-founders, documented 158 million dollars in payments from Black to Epstein for tax and estate-planning work from 2012 to 2017, and reported no evidence that Black or any Apollo employee participated in Epstein's crimes. The board accepted the findings and announced governance changes and a leadership transition the same day, with Black to step down as chief executive and Marc Rowan to succeed him.[^1][^2][^4] Apollo and Black had stated that the firm never did business with Epstein, and Black repeated on the day of release that "Apollo did no business with Mr. Epstein." Dechert found that Epstein's [Financial Trust Company](/organizations/financial-trust-company/) bought 263,257 shares in Apollo's March 2011 initial public offering through a directed-share program managed by the lead underwriter, that the shares passed in 2013 to a second Epstein entity, [Southern Financial LLC](/organizations/southern-financial-llc/), and remained there through at least September 2019, and that Black did not recall the purchase. In the early 2000s Financial Trust Company invested in AP SHL Investors LLC and AP Technology Partners LLC, entities formed by Apollo executives to pursue deals the firm had declined, for which Apollo employees handled some operational functions such as tax returns; in 2011 it invested in Environmental Solutions Worldwide alongside Black and members of his family. Epstein unsuccessfully pitched business to Apollo executives, and Black tried at Epstein's request to introduce him to the co-founders, neither of whom hired him. Dechert described the firm's statements as substantially accurate.[^4][^5] Black's own estate-planning papers, released by the [Justice Department](/organizations/department-of-justice/) among Epstein's files, name the firm in the work Epstein was paid for. The January 14, 2014 version of the "Checklist for Leon Black Estate Planning and Restructuring," which Black's family office sent to Epstein on January 21, 2014, listed "Family Office/Apollo" and "Apollo" as the parties responsible for ascertaining the sources of "Trust Accounting Income" in Black's 2006 Trust and for calculating the amount that "should have been distributed to Leon annually and in the aggregate," both marked complete; it included the item "Confirm that John Hannan and Richard Ressler will proceed without separate counsel" among the steps toward a release and indemnification agreement for the 2006 Trust, and recorded decanting to entities labeled APO1 and APO2 as a first step toward a new "Heritage Trust."[^6][^7] A workbook titled "Apollo / Leon Black / Tax Receivable Agreement (TRA) Payment Workbook / Tax Year 2013," dated March 26, 2014, is in the same releases; no reference to Epstein appears in its text.[^8] The Senate Finance Committee later reported that the 2006 trusts had been funded with Black's interests in Apollo management partnerships.[^9] In his January 25, 2021 letter to limited partners Black also asked the board to consider cancelling the Class C share that gave the co-founders extra votes in favor of "one share, one vote," announced new directors, disclosed that Apollo had engaged [WilmerHale](/organizations/wilmerhale/) to review its reputational-risk and corporate-citizenship practices, and pledged 200 million dollars to initiatives for women, including survivors of sexual assault and human trafficking.[^5] Black left more abruptly than planned, relinquishing the chairmanship as well on March 22, 2021, and Rowan became chief executive. Black publicly accused his co-founder Josh Harris of working to push him out, and the two men's feud played out in the financial press as Harris departed the firm. Rowan consolidated leadership and continued Apollo's expansion, while the Senate Finance Committee's investigation into Black's Epstein-linked tax planning, opened in June 2022 while [Ron Wyden](/people/ron-wyden/) chaired the committee and prompted by what it called "inconsistencies" in the Dechert report, continued into 2026.[^2][^9][^10] The committee reported in July 2023 that the 2006 trusts at the center of Epstein's work had been funded with Black's interests in Apollo's own management partnerships, including 30.35 percent of Apollo Management III, IV, V and VI and 44 percent of four other management entities, and that Black "improperly received excess income from Apollo partnership interests held in a trust, assets he indicated to the [IRS](/organizations/internal-revenue-service/) he no longer owned."[^9] In March 2025 Wyden wrote that his staff had found 12 million dollars in wires from Black to Epstein that "the Apollo Board's investigation omitted or failed to identify," and that Black's attorneys had offered no explanation.[^11] Wyden's August 2026 report put Black's holdings at more than 30 million Apollo shares worth at least 4 billion dollars.[^12] In 2026, after further Epstein file releases renewed attention to Black and Apollo, the firm faced securities-fraud class-action suits alleging that it had failed to disclose to shareholders the scope of Black's dealings with Epstein and the resulting risks. Apollo has said Black's relationship with Epstein was a personal matter unrelated to the firm's business, a characterization the plaintiffs dispute.[^13] [^1]: "Apollo Announces Review of Significant Governance Enhancements as Part of Continued Evolution and Institutionalization of the Firm and Leadership Transition." *Apollo Global Management,* January 25, 2021. https://www.apollo.com/insights-news/pressreleases/2021/01/apollo-announces-review-of-significant-governance-enhancements-as-part-of-continued-evolution-and-institutionalization-of-the-firm-and-leadership-transition-211534651 [^2]: "Leon Black quits Apollo months earlier than expected following Jeffrey Epstein investment scandal." *CNBC,* March 22, 2021. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/22/apollo-ceo-leon-black-leaves-follows-jeffrey-epstein-investment-scandal.html [^3]: For Apollo's founding from Drexel Burnham Lambert, the Executive Life and Credit Lyonnais matter, the firm's growth and 2011 listing, and the Athene relationship and 2022 merger, see the contemporaneous business press and the firm's corporate filings. [^4]: Dechert LLP, Memorandum to the Apollo Conflicts Committee, "Investigation of Epstein/Black Relationship and Any Relationship Between Epstein and Apollo Global Management, Inc.," January 22, 2021, filed as Exhibit 99.1 to Apollo Global Management, Inc. Form 8-K, January 25, 2021 (accession 0001193125-21-016405), pp. 1-4, 21-22. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1411494/000119312521016405/d118102dex991.htm [^5]: Leon D. Black, Letter to Apollo Limited Partners, January 25, 2021, filed as Exhibit 99.2 to Apollo Global Management, Inc. Form 8-K, January 25, 2021. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1411494/000119312521016405/d118102dex992.htm [^6]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00982173, DataSet 9, email from Ada Clapp, Black Family Partners, to Jeffrey Epstein, "6.7.13 Checklist for Leon Black Estate Planning and Restructuring-updated 1.14.14," January 21, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00982173.pdf [^7]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00583490, DataSet 9, "Checklist for Leon Black Estate Planning and Restructuring, As of January 14, 2014." https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00583490.pdf [^8]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00616944, DataSet 9, "Apollo / Leon Black / Tax Receivable Agreement (TRA) Payment Workbook / Tax Year 2013," March 26, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00616944.pdf [^9]: U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, "Wyden Unveils Ongoing Investigation into Private Equity Billionaire Leon Black's Tax Planning and Financial Ties with Jeffrey Epstein," July 25, 2023. https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/wyden-unveils-ongoing-investigation-into-private-equity-billionaire-leon-blacks-tax-planning-and-financial-ties-with-jeffrey-epstein [^10]: "How Wall Street's Apollo got tangled up again in the Epstein files." *CNN Business,* February 21, 2026. https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/21/business/apollo-epstein-wall-street [^11]: Letter from Senator Ron Wyden to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and FBI Director Kash Patel, March 11, 2025. https://www.finance.senate.gov/download/wyden-letter-to-doj-treasury-fbi-on-epsteinpdf?download=1 [^12]: U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, Ranking Member Ron Wyden, "Looking the Other Way: How Wall Street Banks Enabled Jeffrey Epstein's Sex Trafficking," August 4, 2026, p. 13. https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/wyden_wall_street_epstein_report.pdf [^13]: "Apollo, Leon Black sued for allegedly concealing Epstein business ties from shareholders." *Yahoo Finance / Reuters,* 2026. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apollo-leon-black-sued-allegedly-004535212.html