Apollo Explains How Big Tech Is Disrupting Credit Markets
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Why is the credit market important for big‑tech growth and AI investment?
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Oddlots podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.
And I'm Joe Weisenthal.
Joe, do you remember those stories? I guess they were a bigger deal earlier this year, but they're still kind of out there. The stories about how the stock market is all about the big tech companies.
Yeah, absolutely. So it still is. I mean it's it still is. It still is. It still is.
But I think like at one point earlier this year, there was a number that caught my eye. I think it was like 30% of the S P 500 came from the Mag 7. So, you know, Alphabet, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and all of those. And I guess as all the hype and interest over AI has grown, the importance of tech companies in the equity market has increased.
Totally. You know what I think is an interesting stat? We're recording this on September twenty fifth. If I look at the uh major stock indices for the year, the Nasdaq, or as we used to write the tech heavy Nasdaq. Is up 28.3. The SP 500 is up 20.35%, virtually the same. So I think it's telling the degree to which the SP is becoming the NASDAQ. In fact, that we should that would be a good story or a good headline. That basically the SP, by virtue of the dominance of these handful of megacap tech companies that dominate both index, the SP 500 is morphing into the Nasdaq.
Listeners, you get to witness how journalism happens in real time. This way you come up with headlines.
You notice some numbers and you're like, oh, let's see if we can back a story into that.
Okay. Well, speaking of everything becoming tech, I realize that like one thing we haven't really spoken that much about is what tech and all the recent enthusiasm for it actually means for the credit market, for the world of corporate bonds.
Yeah. This is interesting. And there's probably a reason that we don't think about this very often, which is one is that if you look at like the really big tech companies and even like small companies, you know, a lot of it has not historically been credit funded. A lot of it has been equity funded, and VC is equity. And you know, these companies produce so much cash from their earnings and they can fund themselves out of earnings that credit to some extent hasn't been part of the story. But a few things. A, you know, some of these companies mature and they start to issue debt and they do have debt, and some of it's to fund buybacks. We're also in a period where a lot of tech is more capital intensive than it had been in the past and sort of project-based financing is more of an issue.
And maybe that's like a sort of, you know, some of the data center plays, et cetera. So I believe there are interesting credit stories that for real. Reasons I can understand have not gotten much attention.
There definitely are interesting credit stories. And I am very pleased to say we have the perfect guest today who is going to tell them. We are speaking with Rob Bittencourt. He is a partner at Apollo. He is the co head of Opportunistic Credit. He's also a member of a bunch of different investment committees over there. Rob, thank you so much for coming on All Thoughts.
Tracy Joe, uh very excited to be here. Longtime listener and fan. Oh thank you. Oh thank you.
So let me ask the basic question, but what does the co head of opportunistic credit at Apollo actually do? Opportunistic credit sounds like, you know, something you might get at college. What is it exactly?
So before I describe what I do within Opportunistic Credit, I think it makes sense just to level set where does that sit within the broader Apollo plot platform?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why is the credit market important for big‑tech growth and AI investment?
0:01–5:22
2
What does “opportunistic credit” mean at Apollo and how is the $30 bn pool deployed?
5:22–10:46
3
How are private‑credit players financing capital‑intensive AI and data‑center projects?
10:46–17:03
4
Why do high‑rated tech companies still turn to private credit instead of public bonds?
17:03–23:17
5
What role do asset‑backed securities (e.g., data‑center and satellite ABS) play in tech financing?
23:17–29:38
6
How do government programs (CHIP Act, BEAD, IRA) influence private‑credit opportunities in tech?
29:38–36:25
7
How does Apollo source and evaluate credit opportunities – analysts, trading desk, and collaboration?
36:25–42:36
8
What strategies do credit investors use to avoid losers in fast‑moving tech sectors?
42:36–48:47
Speakers
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