Apollo Global Management, Inc. (New)

Good morning and welcome to Apollo Global Management's first quarter 2020 earnings conference call. During today's presentation, all callers will be placed in a listen-only mode and following management's prepared remarks, the conference call will be opened for questions. This conference call is being recorded. This call may include forward-looking statements and projections which do not guarantee future events or performance. Please refer to Apollo's most recent SEC filings, including the 8K Apollo filed this morning, 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 any interest in Apollo Fund. I would now like to turn the call over to Gary Stein, Head of Investor Relations.

Great. Thanks, Operator. Good morning and welcome everyone to our first quarter 2020 earnings call. We hope you and your families are staying safe in these challenging times. Joining me this morning are Leon Black, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Josh Harris, co-founder and senior managing director, and Martin Kelly, chief financial officer and co-chief operating officer. Our co-president, Jim Zelter, is also on the line and will be available during the Q&A session. Earlier this morning, we reported distributable earnings of 37 cents per common share, pre-tax fee-related earnings of 52 cents per share, and a cash dividend of 42 cents per share for the first quarter. With that, I'll turn the call over to Leon Black.

Good morning. Thanks, Gary, and thank you all for joining us. I'd like to focus my comments this morning on the unprecedented circumstances we are collectively facing in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. What began as a virus has become a global health and economic crisis of enormous proportions, and we would first and foremost like to extend our thanks to all of the healthcare professionals and frontline workers for their extraordinary dedication through these difficult times. I would also like to thank our Apollo employees for their continued hard work and commitment to the firm over the past couple of months. The enduring strength of our business is a testament to all of their individual contributions, and on behalf of the management team, we extend our appreciation. As the crisis began to unfold a couple of months ago, our first order of business was to ensure the safety, health, and wellness of our employees and their families, and we continue to monitor their well-being and provide ongoing support. We then quickly turned our attention to preserving business continuity across the firm. Apollo has rapidly adjusted to working remotely, further embracing technology to ensure a relatively seamless transition to a work-from-home environment across the firm's 15 offices around the world. Additionally, over the past couple of months, we have spent a great deal of time with the portfolio companies in the various funds we manage. In early March, we created a portfolio crisis response team, which has been meeting daily and remains in constant communication with the management of our funds portfolio companies, ensuring best practices are shared across areas such as healthcare, business operations, and capital management. With respect to the SBA's Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, none of the companies controlled by Apollo or the funds we manage will be utilizing this program. Similarly, although we are still reviewing the guidance recently announced by the Federal Reserve, we do not anticipate that the Main Street Lending Program will provide any relief or financial assistance to companies controlled by us or our funds. We've been able to leverage the knowledge across the Apollo platform to provide advice and support to these businesses. As Josh will discuss in greater detail shortly, the investment portfolios remain in good shape due to our consistent focus on value pricing discipline, conservative underwriting, and use of less leverage than the industry. In considering the tremendous pressure that COVID has placed on our society as we unite to fight this pandemic, we have also placed an emphasis on identifying how we can support and empower the communities around us. Between Apollo and current portfolio companies, our shared efforts amount to over $50 million in relief effort contributions globally to date. Various portfolio companies have also stepped up to provide aid in other ways. As an example, Diamond Resorts is providing free lodging to healthcare workers and first responders, while LifePoint has partnered with authorities to set up a temporary hospital and has participated in drive-by COVID testing events. McGraw-Hill Education is offering free access to online higher ed coursework and training professors and students to transition to digital learning platforms. And Shutterfly and Amissima, among others, secured, funded, and donated items such as masks, ventilators, and hospital supplies. These are just a handful examples out of many. and I could not be more proud of our employees and those at our funds portfolio companies who have assisted and championed these efforts. Amid these challenging circumstances, we have been able to demonstrate the resiliency of the Apollo model. Now more than ever, Apollo is well positioned to preserve and drive exceptional value to our investors, which include pension funds representing teachers, firefighters, police officers, and government workers, among many others, some of which are on the front lines of the pandemic. We take our fiduciary responsibility to them extremely seriously. Core to Apollo's investment philosophy is our ability to both preserve capital and create value for our investors across cycles, especially during economic uncertainty. Apollo founders have been through five cycles over the past 30 years, and each downturn presents unique opportunities as we navigate the dislocation and identify mispriced risk. Our platform is resilient, our FRE is durable and growing, and we are playing offense, utilizing our decades of experience in times of dislocation. In fact, one of the hallmarks of the Apollo brand has been to perform at extraordinary levels in times of market and economic volatility. Our investments have been positioned defensively, and our funds portfolio companies remain in good shape. Offensively, we have been investing opportunistically, and during the quarter, gross purchases were $40 billion across the platform, with another approximate $10 billion in April. We have successfully created value through prior market dislocations by playing both defense and offense. And as Josh will describe in greater detail shortly, and we expect to continue to do so through the challenging economic environment we see ahead. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Josh to provide an overview of our business operations for the first quarter.