- Methods of Prosperity
- Posts
- Marc Rowan Calls the Private Credit Shots
Marc Rowan Calls the Private Credit Shots
Methods of Prosperity newsletter no. 131: Marc Rowan
Sean Allen Fenn
December 18, 2025
Happy Hanukkah!
“I do think [investing] is broken. We had this notion 40 years ago that private was risky and public was safe. What if that’s just fundamentally wrong?”
Marc Rowan, Co-Founder, CEO and Chair of the board of Apollo Global Management, Inc.
Advertisement:
Owning a home now costs $52K more per year than renting. Families are stuck as forever renters. We’re seizing this shift. Buying 100+ unit assets in growth markets.
Few get in.
Accredited investors can gain access at Inveresta.com.
We’re improving quality of life at scale for hard working families.
ⓘ This is not an offer, solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell securities. Past performance is not an indication of future results. Investing involves risk and may result in partial or total loss. Prospective investors should carefully consider investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses, and should consult with a tax or legal adviser before making any investment decision.
Marc Rowan is a financier. He’s also a paradigmatic visionary challenging the very foundations of modern investing. His role in private credit transcends management. He’s reshaping capital markets. He co-founded Apollo Global Management, which he now leads as CEO.
Rowan has orchestrated the rise of private credit. It started as a $1.5 trillion niche (leveraged lending). Today, private credit has blossomed into its true $40+ trillion potential.
Alternative assets encompass the vast investment-grade universe that the masses fail to perceive. His insight pierces through collective delusion.
Others fixate on leveraged lending risks. Rowan illuminates that the vast majority of private credit is actually investment grade. Not only mortgages, but business loans and corporate debt. This is the very foundation of the financial system.
“Everything on a bank balance sheet is private credit. Everything. A mortgage is private credit. A loan to a business is private credit… The vast, vast majority of private credit is investment grade.”
He’s not dogmatic about it. Rowan has the courage to question the assumptions. Assumptions like private is risky and public is safe. Trillions in capital allocation rest upon this misconception.
“What if private is both safe and risky, and public is both safe and risky, and they are just differing degrees of liquidity?”
Under his stewardship, Apollo has grown to manage hundreds of billions.
Which is phenomenal, considering that Rowan embodies contradiction.
He democratizes access to alternative investments. He does it while building one of the world’s most elite financial fortresses.
He speaks of market transparency while operating in private markets. Which tend to be opaque.
He champions liquidity solutions for inherently illiquid assets.
He redefines “safety” by inverting 40 years of investment orthodoxy.
He’s positioning private credit not as alternative but as primary.
This is the new normal for institutional capital allocation.
“Apollo alone has $840 billion in assets, up from $40 billion in 2008… I’d like to attribute that to good management, but that wouldn’t be true. The answer is, there are just fundamental factors that are reshaping and growing private markets.”
The deepest wisdom Rowan demonstrates is this:
True wealth flows to those who see what others can’t.
The herd obsesses over private credit risks in leveraged lending ($1.5T).
Rowan harvests the investment-grade ocean ($40T+) that exists in plain sight.
Which is invisible to those imprisoned by outdated paradigms.
He’s transformed Apollo from private equity origins into a credit empire.
The greatest fortunes aren’t built by following consensus.
Marc Rowan redefines the very categories through which markets understand risk and reward.
“When we own the S&P 500, do we actually own the 500? Ten stocks are now 40% of the index. We have lost the ability to really invest in a way that reflects the strength of the U.S. market.”
I like you,
– Sean Allen Fenn
PS: The purpose of wealth is freedom. You can have financial freedom, but not by yourself. That’s why we’re building our core group of people. It’s a community to help each other achieve financial freedom. One way is by pooling our resources to invest in Multifamily real estate together. Whatever method of prosperity you choose, don’t go at it alone. You can now join our Methods of Prosperity community on Telegram here:
