Blackstone vs. KKR vs. Apollo
People put Blackstone, KKR, and Apollo in the same sentence. The filings on this site do not.
Apollo Global Management has one number here, $718.5 billion, and it leads the private credit list. KKR has two. The larger is $381.6 billion, and it leads the private equity list. Blackstone has three. The largest of those is $183.5 billion, third on that buyout list. Three brands that get introduced together. Three different patterns of adviser, list, and total.
A larger filing is a larger reported total under the SEC's rules. It is silent on how the money was invested. The order of a list is not a recommendation, and nothing on this page is an offer.
One form, one adviser
Regulatory assets under management is Item 5.F of Form ADV, Part 1A. The adviser counts the securities portfolios it manages on an ongoing basis. A private fund comes on in full, plus the contractual amount of any commitment an investor still owes. Borrowings stay in the total. What Is Regulatory AUM? goes through the instructions. The piece of that definition that decides this comparison is simple. The figure belongs to the legal entity that filed it.
Each list shows a firm once, at its largest filing for that list. A brand that files through several advisers keeps several numbers, and this site does not add them. A combined total would be a number no single Form ADV reports. The KKR profile, the Blackstone profile, and the Apollo profile leave the filings next to each other for that reason.
These pages do not print a filing date. A registered adviser refreshes Item 5 on its annual amendment, within 90 days after its fiscal year ends, and an amendment during the rest of the year can leave that item alone. Two of these names can be reporting totals pulled months apart. The Updated line in the header is the month the pages were generated. You are looking at filed adviser-level totals, taken as reported.
The buyout list is KKR, then Carlyle, then Blackstone
If the comparison you wanted was a buyout ranking, start with the private equity list. KKR is first. The filing is Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P., at $381.6 billion. The description on the row is a global alternative manager best known for leveraged buyouts, with credit, infrastructure, and real estate arms. The profile marks that filing as KKR's main advisory entity.
Carlyle is second, at $283.8 billion, filed as The Carlyle Group. The row describes a global alternative manager best known for control private equity buyouts, plus credit and real assets. KKR's buyout filing is $97.8 billion larger than Carlyle's. Blackstone is third, at $183.5 billion. Carlyle's filing is $100.3 billion larger than Blackstone's. From KKR at the top of the list to Blackstone in third place is $198.1 billion. KKR's buyout number is a little more than twice Blackstone's.
Read the name on Blackstone's buyout form before you treat $183.5 billion as the whole firm. The filer is Blackstone ISG-I Advisors L.L.C. The description calls it a Blackstone advisory entity, and it says the parent is a global alternative asset manager known for private equity and real estate. The profile does not mark this filing as Blackstone's main advisory entity. Thoma Bravo is fourth, at $182.9 billion. The gap is $0.6 billion. On this list, Blackstone's named buyout adviser is barely ahead of a software firm that buys control of enterprise technology companies.
225 firms are on the buyout list. Ten are named. Tenth is Cerberus Capital Management, at $92.5 billion. Apollo is not among those ten. The Apollo profile carries one listing, and the list it points at is private credit. The description published with that row does mention private equity, along with credit and real assets, and a large insurance balance sheet. Any other Apollo adviser sits outside the ten buyout names printed here.
Credit is where the sizes flip
Apollo's $718.5 billion is the filing for Apollo Capital Management, L.P., first on the private credit list. The profile marks it as the main advisory entity. It is the only Apollo figure on this site.
That single filing is $336.9 billion larger than KKR's buyout number, which is the biggest KKR figure these pages print. It is $535.0 billion larger than Blackstone's biggest figure. Against that $183.5 billion buyout filing, Apollo's number is just under four times as large.
One printed total on the site is larger than Apollo's. Millennium Management reports $720.8 billion on the hedge fund list. The private credit note measured the unrounded filings $2.4 billion apart. On the rounded figures the pages show, Apollo sits $2.3 billion behind Millennium. Both are regulatory-asset totals. Neither is a return.
Ares Management is second in credit, at $458.8 billion. Barings is third, at $392.8 billion. Both sit above KKR's $381.6 billion buyout filing. Ares is $77.2 billion above it. Barings is $11.2 billion above it. The first three credit filings are each larger than the largest number KKR has on this site, and each one is larger than any Blackstone filing here. Grouping Blackstone, KKR, and Apollo as the top of the market skips the firms that actually occupy second and third on the credit list.
KKR is fourth in credit, at $270.9 billion. The filer is KKR Credit Advisors (US) LLC. The description is KKR's credit platform, investing in leveraged loans, direct lending, and asset-based finance. It is a different adviser from the buyout filing, and the profile keeps the two numbers apart. The buyout filing is $110.7 billion larger. Apollo's credit filing is $447.6 billion larger than this KKR credit filing, which is more than two and a half times the size.
That $270.9 billion is still larger than anything Blackstone prints. The gap to Blackstone's $183.5 billion buyout filing is $87.4 billion.
Oaktree Capital Management is fifth in credit, at $183.3 billion. The row describes a manager specializing in distressed debt, private credit, and opportunistic real assets. Blackstone's buyout filing is $0.2 billion larger. Almost the same Item 5.F total, on two lists, for two different books.
Blackstone does not appear in the credit ten. 180 firms are on that list, and tenth is Sixth Street, at $101.6 billion. The private credit note walks the rest of that ten. The credit page that carries Apollo at $718.5 billion and KKR at $270.9 billion does not carry Blackstone.
Blackstone's other two numbers
Blackstone is the name with the most listings on this site. The other two are real estate and secondaries, and neither one is in the range of the credit totals above.
On the real assets and infrastructure list, Blackstone is fourth at $130.7 billion. The filer is Blackstone Real Estate Advisors L.P. The description is Blackstone's real estate investment arm, acquiring commercial property globally. Brookfield leads that list at $152.1 billion, $21.4 billion ahead. Global Infrastructure Partners is second at $142.2 billion, $11.5 billion ahead of the Blackstone real estate filing. Nuveen is third at $141.4 billion, $10.7 billion ahead. The real estate filing is $52.8 billion smaller than Blackstone's own buyout filing. 176 firms are on the real assets list. KKR is not in the ten. Apollo is not in the ten. Tenth is Blue Owl Capital, at $67.9 billion, on a real estate filing of its own.
On the secondaries and fund-of-funds list, Blackstone is seventh at $80.4 billion. The filer is Strategic Partners Fund Solutions Advisors L.P. The description on the row is Blackstone's secondaries arm, buying private fund stakes and providing liquidity in deals the fund's manager leads. HarbourVest Partners leads that list at $190.9 billion. HarbourVest's filing is $110.5 billion larger, more than twice the Blackstone number. The secondaries filing is $103.1 billion smaller than Blackstone's buyout filing, and $50.3 billion smaller than the real estate filing. 78 firms are on the secondaries list. KKR is not in that ten either, and neither is Apollo. Tenth is AlpInvest (Carlyle), at $57.7 billion.
In order, Blackstone's printed filings are the buyout number, then real estate, then secondaries. None of them reaches KKR's credit filing.
KKR's buyout description mentions infrastructure and real estate arms. Apollo's description mentions real assets. Those words are on the rows. The named firms on the real assets list and the secondaries list are still other advisers. A business line that did not produce one of the ten largest filings does not get a number here. The lists are a top ten, not a catalog of every strategy a firm runs.
What a side-by-side can say
You can rank the filings. You cannot turn that into a single size for the brand.
Apollo's one printed filing is larger than KKR's larger filing, and larger than Blackstone's largest filing. KKR's buyout filing is larger than each of Blackstone's three, and so is KKR's credit filing. On the buyout list Blackstone sits third, $0.6 billion ahead of Thoma Bravo and $100.3 billion behind Carlyle.
Adding Blackstone's three lines, or KKR's two, would publish a total the SEC did not receive on any one form. These pages do not publish one. The methodology page applies that rule to every firm on more than one list. Four firms show up that way: KKR, Blackstone, Brookfield, and Blue Owl Capital. Sixty-five firms have a profile, across seventy listings, because those four appear more than once. Each profile shows the separate figures and leaves the addition alone.
The firm index is every name that made a top ten. The rankings page links all seven lists. For these three, open the Apollo profile, the KKR profile, and the Blackstone profile, and read each filing against the list it came from. The rank is size on that definition.