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Transcript
OP
Operator
Operator
Good morning, and welcome to Apollo Global Management's Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This conference call is being recorded. This call may contain forward-looking statements and projections, which do not guarantee future events or performance. Please refer to Apollo's most recent SEC filings for risk factors related to these statements. Apollo will be discussing certain non-GAAP measures on this call, which management believes are relevant in assessing the financial performance of the business. These non- GAAP measures are reconciled to GAAP figures in Apollo's earnings presentation, which is available on the company's website. Also note that nothing on this call constitutes an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any Apollo Fund. I would now like to turn the call over to Noah Gunn, Global Head of Investor Relations.
NG
Noah Gunn
Analyst
Great. Thanks, operator, and welcome again to our call this morning. As usual, I am joined by Marc Rowan, CEO; Jim Zelter, President; and Martin Kelly, CFO. Earlier this morning, we published our earnings release and financial supplement on the Investor Relations portion of our website. For those who tuned in early and enjoyed our pregame hold music, we played a Blues track called Take Out Some Insurance by Jimmy Reed. However, no insurance was necessary to protect against our performance this quarter as the results are simply outstanding. Strong execution like this is only made possible because of the tremendous efforts of our global team. We're all excited to discuss in further detail. So I'll now pass it over to Marc.
MR
Marc Jeffrey Rowan
Analyst
Thanks, Noah. Appreciate it, and good morning to all. And again, thank you for your interest in spending time with us. As Noah suggested, second quarter was, in fact, very strong. Just to give the basic metrics; record FRE, $627 million, 22% year-over-year; management fee growth, 21% year-over-year; record ACS fees of $216 million; with respect to SRE, $821 million; with most of the metrics we care about in the right place. And both Martin and I will discuss that. What makes this possible? It's always about team. But if I dissect the business and really talk about what's going on here, the power of what we do from origination was really on full display. $81 billion originated from our platforms and our business in the quarter. That excludes inorganic. With inorganic, it would be in the 90s. Spread over treasuries, 350 basis points. Jim will spend some time talking about the quality of originations. Buying something or originating something is not the secret here. Buying something that has excess return per unit of risk is actually what creates value in our business. Robust inflows of $61 billion across the firm; record AUM, $840 billion. The flywheel of what we do, our originating, raising capital, deploying was really in full force for the quarter. The business was strong and the business is getting stronger, and Martin will detail that and some expectations for the rest of the year. In terms of first dealing with asset management, what matters in asset management is ultimately performance. All buckets of our credit business, the largest of our business, performed the way they should. Whether you were core credit or opportunistic credit, between 9% and 12% over the latest 12 months, 2% and 3% quarter-over-quarter. A couple of things that I would call out.…
JZ
James Charles Zelter
Analyst
Thanks, Marc. Much has been written covering the second quarter in terms of macro events that led to periods of uncertainty followed by a resurgence of confidence and risk on mentality. For Apollo, the attributes of our model were on full display. As stated previously, our North Star is to be an all-weather equal opportunity investor, private and public, primary and secondary, combined with speed and scale across the entirety of the investment-grade and non-investment-grade ecosystem as well as the equity ecosystem. In the aftermath of Liberation Day, we deployed $25 billion in a condensed time frame and we're well regarded as the market leader in that period. As the quarter progressed, confidence returned, markets reopened and risk assets recovered. In this environment, we continue to lead with scale, conviction and certainty of execution. In particular, I would highlight the performance of our high- grade capital solutions business, where we originated more than $8 billion across 4 transactions, including transactions for AES, BP, Mumbai Airport and EDF, which I will touch on shortly. In aggregate, as Marc mentioned, we originated $81 billion of assets during the quarter, representing nearly a 50% growth year- over-year. This result was driven by activity across our diversified origination channels, platforms, core credit, high-grade capital solutions, equity and hybrid. Within platforms, volumes were led by ATLAS and MidCap, which posted combined volume growth of approximately 30% quarter-over-quarter, while maintaining solid historical spread. Within core credit, volumes were led by CRE debt, large-cap direct lending and fund finance, which in a combined basis doubled quarter-over-quarter. It is very important to draw the distinction that all origination is not equal, and we believe there is a fundamental difference and significant value capture between directly originated versus purchasing others originated assets. Of our total origination in the quarter,…
MK
Martin Bernard Kelly
Analyst
Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. Our second quarter results, as you've heard, underscore the increasing momentum across our platform and demonstrate consistent execution of our long-term strategy. I'll briefly walk through the quarter's financial results and highlight the drivers that position us well for the remainder of the year. FRE. In Asset Management, AUM increased by 22% year-over-year to a record $840 billion, while fee-generating AUM grew 22% to $638 billion. Nearly 60% of our total AUM and 75% of our total fee-generating AUM is comprised of perpetual capital, which is highly scalable and largely insulated from cyclical drawdown fundraising. Perpetual capital is benefiting from strong flows in our Global Wealth business as well as Athene. We generated $627 million in fee-related earnings in Q2, a new quarterly high. FRE grew by 22% year-over-year, driven by the following 4 items: one, 22% overall management fee growth with 25% growth in credit, reflecting a strong origination volumes and spreads that Jim described across our asset-backed and other high-grade businesses. Notably, the acquisition of Irradiant by Redding Ridge further builds out the capabilities of Redding Ridge. While this contributed to AUM, it did not contribute to growth in fee- paying AUM or management fee growth in any meaningful way. With respect to equity, S3 has contributed catch-up fees for the last 3 quarters including approximately $15 million in Q2, as we closed out a very successful $5.5 billion fundraise. Two, we generated record capital solutions fees, as you've heard, of $216 million, which exceeded our prior peak in Q2 of '24. The quarter's fee activity comprised approximately 100 discrete transactions supported by the breadth of our origination and portfolio activity. Three, fee revenue growth also included 21% year-over-year growth in fee-related performance fees, reflecting the ongoing scaling of our semiliquid…
OP
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our first question today is coming from Alex Blostein of Goldman Sachs.
AB
Alexander Blostein
Analyst
So really impressive results across the business. I was hoping to maybe double-click into credit spread dynamics and importantly, how that could impact the insurance business perhaps beyond 2025, just taking into account your ability to sort of flex and move between products, but also rising competition in some of the more traditional channels like retail. And then again, to your point, fairly tight credit spreads across the ecosystem?
MR
Marc Jeffrey Rowan
Analyst
Thanks, Alex. It's Marc. I'll start and then I'll let Martin finish up. I think the way to think about the quarter, in credit spreads, in products that we have historically bought CLO, that are now more readily accepted and readily available, have tightened to levels that we think are unsustainable and uneconomic for the risk. We have been able to pivot the origination to maintain spread. Coming back to what Martin said, we are originating new business in the context of this tight spread environment at 130 basis points at numbers consistent with historical rates of return in amounts that we have never done before that we feel very comfortable doing. Why isn't the business growing faster? The business is not growing faster because the profitability of what we had done in the COVID era was just extraordinary. And so what you're watching is the business itself is incredibly healthy, and we're just amortizing, if you will, the flow-through of the business that took place in the COVID era. And as soon as that business runs off, we would expect a meaningful tick up in SRE. There is no doubt and then as I look forward in liabilities that we will see compression in, first, asset spreads that things people can buy. So when we started in this business, insurance companies were not large investors in CLOs. Insurance companies are now large investors in CLOs. The business, while private and originated, is commoditized. It's pretty easy access to the CLO market. It is our job to pivot to products that are not easy access, and that's what we're doing, and that's what you saw in the quarter, and Jim cited it in some of the platforms and some of the high-grade alpha deals. The same thing is likely to…
MK
Martin Bernard Kelly
Analyst
Yes. The only thing I'd add is, obviously, it's a very dynamic and fluid environment. Q1 market spreads were historically tight, and we spoke about that on the call. I spoke about our investing spreads for the year, for the half at 130 basis points. It was wider than that in Q2. It was inside that in Q1. And then in the month of July, we've seen it wider than that. So the setup for us as far as we can tell right now looks promising. And so we're managing that in view of the existing portfolio that Marc mentioned. So we're clearly focused on 10% through cycle growth. That remains our objective here, and we're managing that through an environment, which is dynamic. So we'll provide a more specific update on 2026 as we get closer to the end of this year. But I think we are running the business very well. We're originating liabilities in the right channels well, and we are able to access origination that's very favorable to us, and that's coming through in the new asset spreads that we're speaking to.
OP
Operator
Operator
The next question is coming from Patrick Davitt of Autonomous Research.
MD
Michael Patrick Davitt
Analyst
My question is actually on Athora-PIC. I understand there's still a lot of regulatory hoops to jump through, so it might be tough to give specifics. But is there any color you can give on potential FRE impacts or even the Athora valuation impact on Athene's balance sheet when that closes next year?
MR
Marc Jeffrey Rowan
Analyst
I think your preface kind of sums it up. It is early, and there are still a number of regulatory hurdles. What I will say is we expect this transaction, should it close, to be accretive to Athora's valuation, and over time, to be accretive to FRE. The scale of PIC relative to the U.K. market is the scale of Athene relative to the U.S. market. And I'm going to speak about it in strategy terms rather than numbers, which I know you will find unsatisfying, but it's where we are. We have a massive need for assets in the U.S. as a result of Athene. That has incented us to create massive amounts of origination. And since we are a diversified investor, that origination that we create, a portion of it goes to Athene, but a portion of it builds our third-party business, which is aligned with us. We have not heretofore had an incentive to massively create pound-denominated assets. PIC is as an anchor through Athora, and depending on what the management team at PIC wants, PIC is the opportunity to create a massive pound-based origination ecosystem, which will both benefit Athora PIC and will benefit all of our clients and open up a significant amount of client base in the U.K. market. And similarly, as you know, we have a euro-based funding, which is not as large as we had hoped it to be, but still quite large in the scheme of the continent. And it is our job consistent with some of Jim's remarks about the attractiveness of Europe. And I think what you'll see from us over the coming quarters is to significantly build our requirements for euro-denominated liabilities. This is a virtuous circle. We create a funding box. The funding box needs assets. We build origination around that funding box. The origination serves the funding box itself. It also creates capital markets fees and then it creates FRE, because we also have excess product, which we then are aligned with our investors on. I think momentum is building in the business. I'm personally very excited about the PIC transaction. And the most interesting thing for me, it's coming at a moment of regulatory introspection and political introspection in the U.K., which has made, from my point of view, the U.K. one of the most dynamic and exciting markets potentially for capital formation in private markets. The U.K. government has been incredibly welcoming and has recognized the need for private capital to exist alongside public capital to finance all of the things that the U.K. government wants to do in the context of its other budgetary end requirements. So we feel quite welcome there, and we intend to make a significant contribution and build to our resources in the U.K.
OP
Operator
Operator
The next question is coming from Glenn Schorr of Evercore.
GS
Glenn Paul Schorr
Analyst
Simple question. I'm curious, you mentioned ADS is like $20 billion now and scaling well. So my question is, can ABC scale in right trail behind and tailwind of ADS? Meaning, can you talk about the platform approval pipeline, the scalability, uniqueness of the product? Like where do you think this can go maybe using ADS as an example?
JZ
James Charles Zelter
Analyst
Great. Thank you, Bill (sic) [ Glenn ]. I think you're on to something. I mean, certainly, we saw, with ADS taking the strategy that Marc talked about and not reaching, but doing it with the Apollo brand, we clearly have positioned ourselves as 1 of the 2 or 3 leading players in that space. And taking that page, we believe we have the first-mover advantage in the ABF world with ABC. It's an area that -- it's all about origination-led. Certainly, the purchase several years ago of ATLAS with its 300 relationships is feeding into that. Early approvals are extremely strong. The breadth of clients institutionally and on Global Wealth approving the product is very, very strong. So we see a clear wake for that product to follow the success of ADS. And again, I think because what investors out there see, not only is the -- as people are concerned about a credit cycle that someday will revisit us, the underlying risk in ABC is a greater degree of investment-grade counterparty risk. And so as you get later in the cycle, there's a great excitement for higher quality yield, which that certainly covers. But we feel the early indications lead us to believe that this will be the market-leading player. And now it's really up to us to execute the strategy and to follow through on our vision.
OP
Operator
Operator
The next question is coming from Bill Katz of TD Cowen.
WK
William Raymond Katz
Analyst
It certainly feels like there was a step function of earnings power and just throughput of the platform. And when I look at some of these numbers on the origination or deployment, they are significant. And I'm sort of curious, what has changed in the last couple of quarters here? Is it just the breadth of clients that you're working for? Is it the capacity at the origination platform? Because it seems like not only to be sustainable, but they're sort of accelerating. I'm just trying to understand what the incremental driver has been.
JZ
James Charles Zelter
Analyst
Sure. I think what you're seeing, and it's a correct insight, it's just the power of the ecosystem. What Marc talked about in the CLO business, which was a black hour 20 years ago and now has become commoditized to some degree. And we're still a very large player in it, but it fits a different role. We're seeing that right now, even though we've increased our leverage, our capabilities in direct lending. Any 1 product can become commoditization, but if you deliver the entirety of the toolbox to either corporates, to finance companies, to financial sponsors, we're finding the power of that integrated toolbox is compelling. 24 months ago, we brought all of our origination globally under the leadership of Chris Edson. . Certainly, there's many, many folks that contribute to that. But when we see delivering the consolidated toolbox and where you may get a product from a U.S. or a European financial sponsor, it may be a direct lending product, but it also may be an inventory finance, it may be fund finance, it may be a CLO issuance. So the crossover impact is dramatic. And from our perspective, that is the ability for us to really accelerate the platform and that flywheel that Marc talked about. Also, we're finding is more and more financial sponsors are focused on the cost of capital. And if the PE overhang is dramatic and it doesn't appear to be waning anytime soon, your ability to provide a variety of financing tools for them in a variety of areas, several of which are investment-grade rated, that's the second compelling area. And the third is, and I'll use ATLAS as a double- click for a moment. When the platforms engaged to purchase ATLAS, half the business at that point in time was an agency business, agency mortgages on the resi and commercial side. Those businesses we either sold or shut down, because they did not provide any excess spread for unit risk. And now if you look at the actual origination platform at ATLAS, from 200 facilities, over 300 under the leadership of Carey Lathrop, they're really hitting their stride. So when you connect these businesses together as a combined toolbox and it's more investment-grade solutions, those are what's the accelerating factor.
OP
Operator
Operator
The next question is coming from Wilma Burdis of Raymond James.
WB
Wilma Carter Jackson Burdis
Analyst
Could you talk a little bit more about the other inflows in retirement services and what the outlook is there? I think the footnote mentions defined contribution plans, and we'd just like to get a little bit more color there.
MK
Martin Bernard Kelly
Analyst
Yes. It's some of the emerging areas that Marc has been speaking about. So specific to that line item, it's stable value products. And that's an area that we are spending a lot of time around developing capabilities and distribution points. And we think that, that's 1 of several new markets that will be the seeds of growth for Athene's business in the years ahead.
MR
Marc Jeffrey Rowan
Analyst
I think, Wilma, first up, thank you, and apologies for the last quarter, for what happened. We ended up not being able to take one of your questions last quarter. But just to expand on that a little bit for you. The industry has not really created that many new products. We have lots of variations on the theme. And when you think about what's happened, and I've said this publicly before, the first insurance policy ever issued was 1 page, Scottish Widows. When you die, you get this. Now to buy a retirement product and annuity is 100 pages. Very few people can understand what they're buying. When people are uncomfortable with what they're buying, you tend not to buy as much of it. Having said that, the compelling need is still causing the market to be very sizable. Part of the change we see happening in this industry is getting back to something that is really simple. Really simple will initially take place in the existing products. Can we get to an immediate issuance of an annuity? Can we make the process less burdensome? Can we use new technology to streamline what it is we're doing. We don't have to do things the way we've done them historically. Can we make it more accessible and more understandable. This is the first step in the journey. The second step in the journey is a kind of more ambitious goal. The world of retirement went over a long period of time from defined benefit, which employees loved and employers hated. We then threw people to the walls and defined contribution. Very few people have advice, very few people make choices. We've had good market performance, so we've had okay outcomes, but it is not as a result of positive selections…
OP
Operator
Operator
The next question is coming from Ken Worthington of JPMorgan Chase.
KW
Kenneth Brooks Worthington
Analyst
Can you talk about GeoWealth and what you aspire to do with this partnership?
JZ
James Charles Zelter
Analyst
Yes. I think like Marc just described, our whole goal is to continue to innovate on a journey that we don't know the exact destination, but we understand the objectives. And there's no doubt that the technology application of these types of TAMP managers, that skill set and that technology that allows us to deliver a product set with information with transparency, with clear information. And this was in the past, documentation and technology were barriers. We're looking at this to be part of the successful journey that arms us with the tools to be able to be more client-friendly, more client transparency, more information education. So we have a vision on where the journey is taking us. We don't have the exact destination in our crosshairs. But we want to arm ourselves with -- we believe in open architecture, we believe in the application of technology and education. And all of these things help us along that journey.
OP
Operator
Operator
The next question is coming from Ben Budish of Barclays.
BB
Benjamin Elliot Budish
Analyst
Just wanted to follow up on the answer to Alex's question at the beginning of the Q&A session. Just trying to -- maybe you could help us understand a little bit better the shape of what we might see as the sort of during-COVID business runs off. What's the expected timing there? What was the average duration of the liabilities you were writing? And when you get to the other side of that, should we sort of see the aggregate spreads kind of normalize back up to 130? Or how should we see it sort of play out tactically in the P&L when we see it quarter-over-quarter?
MK
Martin Bernard Kelly
Analyst
Yes. I think the best evidence of that is part of the question you asked, which is when do the net spreads stabilize. And so we will expect to see that business continue to run off through next year. And so you should expect to see the reported net spreads decline slightly through that period of time. It will decline for the balance of the year and then stabilize. And then we are past the period of very low-cost liabilities and very rich assets against those liabilities running off through the system. So that's what we see. That's what we model. That's what we're seeing in the actual numbers. It's clearly quite predictable. And so at the same time, we're managing top line growth of the business in view of the macro environment to achieve the growth ambitions.
OP
Operator
Operator
The next question is coming from Michael Cyprys of Morgan Stanley.
MC
Michael J. Cyprys
Analyst
I just wanted to ask about 401(k). I think you mentioned that you're on the cusp of serving the 401(k) marketplace. Just curious if you could elaborate a bit on how you see that opening up? What sort of changes, regulatory or otherwise, you're anticipating the time frame there? And then if you could talk about some of the steps that you're taking to ensure that you're going to be a winner as that marketplace opens up. I know you already have some partnerships on the intermediary wealth side. Just curious if you might need additional partnerships, how you're approaching that, and what strategy you think might make the most sense in the 401(k) channel?
MR
Marc Jeffrey Rowan
Analyst
Look, I'll do my best in the context of the call. I think Jim and I were just smiling looking at each other. First, the order is not out yet. So it's always dangerous to speculate on what does not yet exist. And then I do think the question will probably involve a whole day of answers. But my take on it, the need is there. Everywhere in the world where private assets have been added to public portfolios, you've gotten better outcomes. The shining example is the Australian system, but it's the Israeli system, it's the Mexican system, it's the Chilean system, it's a number of other places. And as I said in my discussion, it's not a little bit better outcomes. It's 50% and 100% better outcomes. This is not something that we need to sell. Plan sponsors, members of the ecosystem along the way, they understand this. And for the most part, they would like to include a more diverse set of assets with higher returns for retirees to build for their nesting. The impediments to that to date have been some on the embedded businesses, record-keeping, technology, reporting, but the primary problem has been litigation. This has been a very litigious area where plan sponsors and others have basically been forced into taking the lowest cost option rather than the one that produces the best net return to the underlying beneficiary. That has limited -- because there's no prohibition right now on private assets. What we need is clarity and what we need is some clear rules of the road. Even in the absence of that, you are watching significant experimentation. I don't know the exact number, but it will be a few billion dollars this year for us of origination into the 401(k) channel. It…
OP
Operator
Operator
The next question is coming from Brian Bedell of Deutsche Bank.
BB
Brian Bertram Bedell
Analyst
I appreciate all the color today. This is a fantastic information. Two-parter question, if I can do that. First on Capital Solutions. Another solid quarter here. Maybe just some perspective on sort of the road map of new initiatives within this since Investor Day and maybe focusing on the trading of private credit. I think, Marc, you mentioned earlier, the potential for Capital Solutions to pace at a level above the $1 billion target in '29 or to meet that target sooner, I guess. And then just quickly on SRE, just the rate cut assumptions that you have in your guidance for this year and then sensitivity to more rate cuts if that happens?
JZ
James Charles Zelter
Analyst
Yes. So this is Jim. I'll take the first one. There's definitely a connection in the ecosystem of ACS and the trading ecosystem. And certainly, what ACS has done for us, if you go back 5 years, it took our traditional narrow unit of our LPs and clearly has expanded that dramatically. So on a day-to-day basis right now and month-to-month, our touch points have dramatically increased. And so as Martin mentioned, 100 transactions in the quarter, the breadth of our ability to distribute investment-grade, noninvestment-grade, equity and hybrid product has made us smarter and it's that ecosystem, that flywheel on origination. So I think you're going to see, in the absence of any -- before I get to trading, I think there's a maturity of the ACS product set across our universe, and we were very active in the quarter. I think combined with that now, when we see our dialogue with more and more investors that are some of the traditionals, other insurance companies, there's no doubt more transparency, more information, more confidence in what they're buying is going to expand the pie. And so we have the good fortune that this is our 40th collective year in the business or 80th between Marc and I. And whenever we see the ability to open up transparency, investor information, investor education and confidence, that expands the pie. There are others that have a different view of that. We think Evolution and Darwinian history will be on our side of history in this one. And I can't tell you exactly how it's going to occur. But when I see the conversations regarding stablecoins and when you think about the tokenization that's occurred in our funds in a very meaningful way in a narrow band, but not yet really impacted broadly, we just feel this whole area of trading and liquidity and provisions of liquidity to clients will expand that ecosystem. Some may be bidding offer spread. Some may be on volumes during dislocations. Some may be on indexing and better ability to create products. But this is all about that flywheel and expanding one more chapter to it. And it's very early days. We're having great success, but the broader impact will be felt in 12 to 24 months.
MR
Marc Jeffrey Rowan
Analyst
I think on the SRE, we'll follow up offline, because we have 2 more questions, and the call has been among our longest calls. So next up.
OP
Operator
Operator
The next question is coming from John Barnidge of Piper Sandler.
JB
John Bakewell Barnidge
Analyst
My question is around realizations. They've remained muted and below historic levels. With markets activity beginning to pick up broadly, are you expecting an inflection point later this year? Or do you think it will be more next?
JZ
James Charles Zelter
Analyst
Well, in our portfolio, as Marc mentioned, we have -- in the key industry, Fund IX has 0.7 DPI versus the industry of 0.2, and we're early days on Fund X, 0.2 versus 0. So we're ahead of the pack, although it's not at our level of expectations. I do believe you will see greater monetizations as the risk appetite for the marketplace continues to expand. We stay at these levels. But I do think the broader solutions as an industry to how to solve the PE overhang of monetizations is not just going to occur because of what happens in the IPO market. I think other tools and products will be created. It's a longer conversation, but I don't think it's just an IPO story. I think there's a broader market structure issue and opportunity.
MR
Marc Jeffrey Rowan
Analyst
Let me just tell on that. Our peer group have gone before in prior calls and have been relatively optimistic on the realization cycle. I hope they're right. I don't think the realization cycle is unique to any one firm. I think in this case, it applies across the board. I think what we have going for us is a differentiated strategy, which does not always mean the right strategy. It just means a different strategy. We are a purchase price matters firm. You can like that, you could not like it, but our investors ultimately allocate to us because we provide a differentiated sort of risk across their portfolio. When you buy something at a reasonable price, you have more options on exit than when you have to get top tick because you paid a high multiple and you need to grow into it. We have been successful in cash flowing our investments. We have been successful in taking them public, even if below the valuations we want, because we simply had a purchase price matters mentality. It's why the net gross in Fund IX and Fund X and the DPI is ahead of it. But I heard the optimism. I hope they're right. If it happens, we're going to be the beneficiary of that. If it doesn't happen, we're going to continue to do what we do.
OP
Operator
Operator
Our next question is coming from Kyle Voigt of KBW.
KV
Kyle Kenneth Voigt
Analyst
So in your prepared remarks, you noted you expected continued strong growth for AAA, but also highlighted institutional fundraising there and that institutions are now reevaluating the idea of equity replacement and doing so sooner than you previously thought. I was wondering if you could just expand upon some of those conversations you're having with LPs on that front. How has that changed more recently and whether you think you're potentially at an inflection point there?
MR
Marc Jeffrey Rowan
Analyst
So we closed the quarter, Martin, correct me if I'm wrong, north of $23 billion. We'll close the year north of $25 billion. When we conceived of this product, we conceived the product in partnership with our Global Wealth counterparts. And we conceived of the product as a retail product. This was a way for the high net worth investor to access a diversified portfolio in a fully aligned fashion with relatively low fees and get broad participation in private markets, excess return per unit of risk, good returns, 12 and change, a lifetime to date with a fraction of the vol of the S&P. We went to market. And yes, we did penetrate and have continued to penetrate the retail market. The surprise to us, which is always fun in our business, is the institutional need and institutional demand for the product. An institution that wants a fully diversified portfolio by vintage, by type, by structure, by industry can actually sit side-by-side with us in a fully aligned fashion. And what I like and what Jim likes about this is institutions continue to evolve this, because some institutions look at this and they say, well, this is slightly below PE returns. And we say, of course, it's below PE returns, it's not levered. And so we have institutional clients who have now -- as a result of inbounds, we've created a levered share class for AAA, long-dated, low-cost leverage on a reasonable basis where an institution can get a buy-in to this fund and can buy the levered share class and actually produce PE returns with a fraction of the return of PE. That is the place we have seen a couple of really large tickets come in. We also have seen a significant amount of demand coming from [ ICOLI ] for all the reasons you would expect that of [ ICOLI ] given the stability of returns and the aligned investment. I continue to believe that leveraging of more broadly diversified risk of AAA rather than trying to shoot the lights out for highly levered PE in these retail vehicles to be the right strategy. It's not everyone's strategy. It's what our strategy is. But I'm very optimistic about the institutional side of AAA, which is a market we, quite frankly, did not envision when we formed the vehicle, but pleased that we've developed it.
OP
Operator
Operator
Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Gunn for closing comments.
NG
Noah Gunn
Analyst
Great. Thanks, operator, and thank you again to everyone for all the time and attention this morning. If you have any follow-up questions regarding anything we discussed on today's call, please, of course, feel free to reach out to us, and we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thank you.
OP
Operator
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's event. You may disconnect your lines or log off the webcast at this time, and enjoy the rest of your day.