Rowan explains Athene's growth is limited by assets that earn spread, not by capital or liabilities.
“The growth in the business is not limited by capital. It is not limited by liabilities. It is limited by assets, because it only makes sense to grow if you can earn spread.”
Rowan emphasizes Apollo manages half its $500 billion for itself, offering clients only what it already owns.
“Think about what that does from an alignment point of view. We go to a client and we offer them nothing that we don't already own.”
Rowan questions whether regional banks can remain in the loan business given higher costs and deposit uncertainty.
“If you pay more for your deposits, if you have increased costs from operations, from regulation, and all of a sudden you don't know about the stickiness of your deposits, are you in the loan business anymore?”
Rowan questions whether regional banks can remain in the loan business given higher deposit costs and uncertain deposit stickiness.
“What is the business of regional banking going forward? If you pay more for your deposits, if you have increased costs from operations, from regulation, and all of a sudden you don't know about the stickiness of your deposits, are you in the loan business anymore?”
Rowan explains Athene's 25% diversification rule creates a $400 billion ecosystem with co-investors.
“So as Athene buys 25% of everything, clients of ours, institutions, other insurance companies, retirement systems, wealthy individuals come in side by side aligned with Athene.”
Rowan defines Apollo's role as asset origination, creating risk that doesn't exist in traditional markets.
“Our role is to originate the assets. If we originate good risk that offers excess return per unit of risk, we will prosper, and we will have lots of buyers for our product, our own balance sheet, funds, individuals, institutions, insurance companies, four zero one ks, and so on.”