Apollo taps Tikehau for credit secondaries MD

Apollo Global Management has made a senior hire in its credit secondaries team, six months after it barrelled into the market.

The New York-listed asset manager, which has $461 billion in assets under management, has appointed Olga Kosters as a managing director, according to her LinkedIn profile. She started in October.

New York-based Kosters has been head of private debt secondaries at Tikehau Capital since November 2019. She helped launch Tikehau Private Debt Secondaries, the alternatives manager’s first comingled debt secondaries fund, which has raised $248 million so far, according to Secondaries Investor data.

It is understood that Kosters’ departure will not cause a halt to fundraising.

Apollo launched its credit secondaries business at the end of April with $1 billion to deploy, Secondaries Investor reported. The team is co-led by partner Earl Hunt, who joined from Goldman Sachs.

Kosters will manage the team on a day-to-day basis and report to Hunt and global head of structured credit Bret Leas, according to a spokeswoman for Apollo.

In May, speaking on a first-quarter earnings call, chief executive officer Marc Rowan said that Apollo was aiming to be the “category killer” in the credit secondaries market.

“The real secret sauce in a secondaries business is having knowledge of the underlying investments to be able to move rapidly and thoughtfully around making investment decisions. Because Apollo is the largest alternative credit lender, we have views and visibility on essentially every credit product, every underlying security in the market,” he said.

Apollo’s entry was one of several significant events for the credit secondaries market in 2021. In March, Ares Management acquired Landmark Partners in a deal worth $1.08 billion. Credit secondaries market would be a key area of growth for Landmark, Ares said at the time.

In May, Secondaries Investor reported that Coller Capital was launching a credit secondaries fund, joining Tikehau and Pantheon in raising funds dedicated to the strategy.

It is understood that Manulife Investment Management and Strategic Partners are among the secondaries firms to have allocations to the strategy in their flagship funds.

“There is lots of primary fund growth and what happens on the primary side is a big driver of the secondary market too… If the primary market is $1 trillion then even just a few percentage points of that gives you a very significant number in terms of dealflow,” Kosters told affiliate title Private Debt Investor in June.

Tikehau did not wish to comment.