Apollo Global Management Inc. is using a new confectionary-based metaphor to reiterate its longstanding claim that investors are vastly underestimating how much of the private-credit market carries an investment-grade rating.
In a LinkedIn post this week that featured a photo of a cupcake with pale pink icing and sprinkles, the asset manager lays out that private credit is a $40 trillion universe, and said 95% of it is investment grade. The rest of the market, the post reads, is as “big as just one sprinkle on a cupcake.”
“Don’t mistake the sprinkle for the cupcake,” the New York-based firm, which oversees more than $1 trillion, said in the caption of the LinkedIn post. “That’s how most people think about private credit.”
The $2 trillion sprinkle in question represents levered lending, which involves providing financing to highly indebted companies. That segment has faced pressure in recent months as investors, worried about the threats from AI and global events, have moved to pull money out of the illiquid vehicles that house private-credit assets.
Apollo’s social-media campaign highlights the firm’s growing focus on financing investment-grade companies, not just borrowers that would generally not be able to access public credit markets.
“Investment-grade private credit is financing infrastructure, energy and industrial growth,” the firm says in the post.
Apollo has long touted the benefits of investing in high-grade credits, and unveiled a 125-page slide deck at the end of last year that detailed opportunities in other credit assets, including asset- and mortgage-backed securities and direct corporate issuance.
The social-media campaign is “part of our multi-year effort to share the facts behind the evolution of markets in creative ways,” the company said in an emailed statement.
Apollo landed the biggest private-credit deal on record this year, for Broadcom Inc. and Anthropic PBC, with most of the debt receiving private ratings in the mid-investment grade tier.
Written by: Emily Graffeo — With assistance from Kate Seaman @Bloomberg
The post “Apollo Likens Risky Private Credit to Mere ‘Sprinkle’ on Cupcake” first appeared on Bloomberg