LEON BLACK

Born in 1951 in New York City. Father Eli Black was the CEO of United Brands (now Chiquita).

Eli Black died by suicide in 1975 amid a bribery scandal — jumping from the Pan Am Building in Midtown Manhattan. This tragedy profoundly shaped Leon's life and career.

Joined Drexel Burnham Lambert in 1977, where he worked under Michael Milken in the high-yield bond department. When Drexel collapsed in 1990, Black and two colleagues — Josh Harris and Marc Rowan — founded Apollo Global Management to buy distressed assets in the post-Drexel wreckage.

Apollo went public in 2011 and grew into one of the largest alternative investment managers in the world, with over $650 billion in assets under management. Black served as chairman and CEO until stepping down in 2021.

Apollo Global Management is the empire — $650+ billion in assets under management across private equity, credit, real estate, and insurance. Apollo's biggest move was merging with Athene Holding, a retirement services company, creating a massive credit and insurance platform.

Major Apollo investments have included: Caesars Entertainment, Norwegian Cruise Line, ADT, Rackspace, Chuck E. Cheese, and hundreds of other companies.

Apollo is known for aggressive credit investing and complex financial engineering.

Black is also one of the world's most significant art collectors. His collection includes works by Raphael, Edvard Munch, and other masters.

He purchased Munch's "The Scream" for $119.9 million in 2012 — a record at the time.

Black learned distressed investing at Drexel under Michael Milken. Apollo's original strategy was buying the debt of bankrupt companies at pennies on the dollar and converting it into equity through restructuring.

It's financial vulture investing — buying what nobody else wants and profiting from the recovery.

Over time, Apollo expanded from pure distressed into broader private equity and credit. The firm is now one of the largest credit investors in the world, using Athene's insurance float to fund long-term investments — similar to how Berkshire Hathaway uses insurance float.

Black's personal investing is concentrated in Apollo stock and his art collection — both highly illiquid, highly concentrated positions.

Apollo Global Management itself. Black and his co-founders built a startup fund in 1990 into a $650 billion global alternative asset platform.

Apollo's stock has generated enormous returns for long-term shareholders. Black's personal stake was worth over $10 billion at peak prices.

Building one of the three largest alternative asset managers from scratch is a generational achievement.

The Epstein connection. Black paid Jeffrey Epstein $158 million in advisory fees between 2012 and 2017 — years after Epstein's 2008 conviction.

When the relationship became public, it overshadowed everything Black had built. He stepped down as Apollo chairman in 2021.

An independent review cleared him of involvement in Epstein's crimes, but the relationship permanently damaged his reputation and legacy.

Black believes distressed markets offer the best risk-adjusted returns. When companies are in crisis, assets sell at fire-sale prices.

If you have the capital and expertise to buy during the panic and fix the operations, the returns are extraordinary.

He also believes in the power of credit over equity. Apollo's expansion into credit investing — lending money rather than buying equity — reflects a conviction that lending at the right terms generates more consistent returns with less downside.

On private equity: operational improvement is more sustainable than financial engineering. The firms that survive create real value in their portfolio companies.

His father Eli Black's 1975 suicide deeply affected him. Married to Debra Black, a ballet and cultural arts patron.

They have four children. Debra is active in the arts community and serves on numerous boards.

The family is major philanthropic donors, particularly to medical research and the arts.

Born in New York City. Attended Dartmouth College for his undergraduate degree.

MBA from Harvard Business School. Then Drexel Burnham Lambert, where he learned high-yield debt from Michael Milken.

The Drexel training was the foundation of everything Apollo would become.

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