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Apollo's Leon Black Takes Home $191.3 Million Payout in 2017

Apollo's Leon Black Takes Home $191.3 Million Payout in 2017

(Bloomberg) -- Apollo Global Management LLC’s Leon Black pocketed $191.3 million in 2017, up 45 percent from the previous year.

Black, Apollo’s co-founder and chief executive officer, received $251,888 in salary and other compensation such as personal use of company-provided cars, according to a regulatory filing Monday. The billionaire got $191 million in stock dividends from the New York-based alternative asset manager.

Unlike executives at peers Blackstone Group LP and Carlyle Group LP, Black collects the same per-share dividend as public shareholders. He takes a $100,000 salary, no bonus and no carried interest, which is a cut of deal profits. Apollo’s median employee total compensation, which doesn’t include stock dividends, was $249,750 last year, according to a new disclosure mandated for 2017.

Black’s payout compares with $131.9 million in 2016 and $128.2 million the previous year. The 66-year-old has a net worth of about $5.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Private equity executives are some of the wealthiest financiers, with the rise of Apollo, Blackstone, Carlyle, KKR & Co., Oaktree Capital Group LLC and Ares Management LP minting billionaires among their founders.

Apollo, which Black founded with Josh Harris and Marc Rowan in 1990, earned $970.1 million in distributable earnings last year, up from $638.3 million in 2016. The firm set an industry record in 2017 by raising a $24.7 billion fund, the largest ever managed by a buyout firm.

Blackstone, Carlyle and KKR are set to disclose their founders’ payouts later this month. Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, the wealthiest among the executives, took home $425 million in 2016 and a record $734.2 million the previous year.

Apollo managed $248.9 billion in private equity holdings, credit assets and real estate as of Dec. 31, the second-largest amount for a U.S.-based alternative asset manager behind Blackstone.

--With assistance from Anders Melin

To contact the reporters on this story: Devin Banerjee in New York at dbanerjee2@bloomberg.net, Melissa Mittelman in New York at mmittelman@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Fournier at efournier5@bloomberg.net, Michael Hytha

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