Apollo Exec Questions PE Software Valuations, Warns of Potential Private-Loan Losses
Apollo’s John Zito told UBS clients that private-equity marks on software holdings are “all the marks are wrong,” warning that lenders to smaller software firms could recover only 20–40 cents on the dollar. Apollo says software makes up under 2% of its AUM and it has zero exposure to PE stakes in software firms, even as private credit faces redemptions and AI-driven market volatility that could pressure valuations and foretell deeper losses if loans falter. Zito also noted riskier, lower-quality private-equity software bets from 2018–2022, but argued the broader private-credit asset class should endure with better risk management.