Apollo Global Management LLC said second-quarter profit more than doubled as it marked up the value of its stake in annuity-seller Athene Holding Ltd., and its private equity and credit holdings gained.
Economic net income, a measure of earnings that reflects both realized and unrealized investment gains, increased to $395 million, or 98 cents a share, from $155 million, or 38 cents a share, a year earlier, the New York-based private equity and credit investor said in a statement Wednesday. Analysts had expected earnings of 20 cents a share, the average of 14 estimates compiled by Bloomberg, with the highest expectation at 39 cents.
Apollo, which aggressively sold private equity holdings from 2011 to 2014, has slowed the pace as its remaining portfolio shrinks and the firm focuses on deploying new money. Apollo returned $1.3 billion to investors in the quarter, down from $3.4 billion in the same period last year.
The firm marked up the value of its nearly 10 percent interest in Athene to $615 million from $512 million three months earlier. An annuities seller Apollo created in 2009, Athene plans to go public this year.
Shares of Apollo rose 2.8 percent to $17.43 at 10:11 a.m. in New York. The stock was up 16 percent, including reinvested dividends, this year through Tuesday.
Buyout holdings
The firm, led by Chief Executive Officer Leon Black, said its private equity holdings, including companies it's taken public and still owns, rose 3.1 percent in the quarter. That was despite a slide in Apollo's biggest stake, in Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd., of $558 million, or 28 percent, during the quarter.
Apollo's main buyout fund, an $18.4 billion pool, surpassed a return threshold that allows the firm to start collecting its share of investment profits, known as carried interest. That boosted Apollo's carried interest income, including realized and unrealized gains, to $322.2 million from $94.9 million a year earlier.
Rival buyout firm Carlyle Group LP's private equity investments rose 4 percent in the quarter, Blackstone Group LP's appreciated 2.5 percent and KKR & Co.'s gained 4.5 percent.
Distributable earnings, which reflect profits on asset sales and fund management fees, were $161 million in the quarter, compared with $199 million a year earlier. From that pool of profits, Apollo said it will pay stockholders a dividend of 37 cents a share on Aug. 31.
