Private equity firm Apollo seems to pay far more than KKR in London
Private equity firms were tossed and turned in 2024, and although the industry did better than in 2023, it still wasn’t great. Data in the UK suggests Apollo paid its senior people in London far better than KKR for the year.
Accounts were released in the last week for KKR and Apollo’s UK subsidiaries. KKR’s main UK accounts are for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Partners LLP. Apollo’s main UK accounts are for the entity known as Apollo Management International LLP.
Apollo’s UK subsidiary paid its 301 employees an average of £521k ($704k) in 2024. That was a substantial sum, even if it was a slight decrease on the £553k ($748k) Apollo paid London staff on average in 2023.
It’s also much, much higher than the £171k ($232k) that KKR paid on average to its 169 UK employees working for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Partners LLP. The firm’s pay was a slight decrease on 2023 too, when it paid its people an average of £173k ($235k).
The pay figures come with some important caveats, however. Last year, KKR paid its “members” (UK legal jargon for partners in a legal partnership) an additional £56m, compared to the £84m it paid in 2023. It had 95 members across both years, and discarding the largest single payment (which went to the parent company), it distributed an average of £420k ($568k) to its members. In 2023, it distributed £701k ($947k) to each member.
Apollo was not so generous with its distributions. In 2024, the firm had £137m available for distribution among members – and it gave out £169m to a single undisclosed member (likely a corporate entity). The implication, therefore, is that incentive pay was included in the topline wages and salaries figure - unless one Apollo member had a blockbuster bonus, and all others received none.
Employee numbers rose across both years for both firms. KKR employed 81 administrative staff and 79 investment staff in 2023; this rose to 88 and 81, respectively, in 2024. Apollo had 140 admins and 139 investment staff in 2023 – this rose to 156 and 145, respectively, in 2024.
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