Too Much Client Nest Egg Value Depends on 10 Stocks: Apollo CEO

The head of Athene’s parent says the concentrated nature of ordinary U.S. retirement savings portfolios makes the idea of wealthy people investing in private credit look better.

Marc Rowan, the CEO of Apollo Global Management, the asset manager that acquired full control of Athene in 2022, talked about what he sees as lack of real diversification in retirement assets Wednesday, during a conference call Apollo held to go over third-quarter earnings with securities analysts.

What it means: You tell your retirement planning clients to diversify their portfolios.

Rowan contends that, in reality, too many people are depending too much on the performance of just a few companies.

Apollo and Athene: Apollo is a New York-based asset manager that reported $660 million in net income for the third quarter on $1.3 billion in fee and spread-related earnings and $631 billion in assets under management.

Athene writes annuities, reinsures annuities for other insurers and assumes pension risk by selling group annuities to the plan sponsors. It and related retirement services operations ended the third quarter with $261 billion in invested assets.

Rowan on nest eggs: Rowan sees lack of investment diversification as one of the major challenges facing retirement savers.

The headwinds include lack of liquidity in the public bond markets, regulatory pressures that are causing banks to lend less, and the rise of index-based investing, Rowan said.