Apollo's Black gets $104 mn in distributions, pay

Apollo Global Management LLC co-founder Leon Black will take home $104.2 million in 2011 dividends, salary and share of profits from the private equity firm, more than twice what he got in 2010, thanks to the firm's record investment payouts.

Apollo's revenues from realized carried interest - its cut from the profits it makes investors - hit an all-time annual high of $645 million in 2011 due to cash payouts from some of its realized investments, such as the sale of Parallel Petroleum to Samsung C&T Corp for $772 million.

Most of the payout to buyout executives comes from the ownership interest they have in the company. While publicly listed buyout groups rely increasingly on management fees rather than carried interest to pay dividends, only 25% of Apollo's 2011 cash distributions came from fees.

Still, the size of the payout could raise eyebrows at a time when the industry has come under renewed scrutiny, thanks to Republican presidential hopeful and former private equity executive Mitt Romney.

Black got $103.9 million in cash distributions for his 24% ownership of the firm, up from $35.2 million in 2010, a regulatory filing showed on Friday. Black's partners Joshua Harris and Marc Rowan, who each own 15%, took $66.1 million apiece for 2011.

Black took a salary of $100,000 last year, the same as the year before. His executive compensation from Apollo was $373,229, down from $8.9 million in 2010.

Apollo also said senior employees had committed about $1 billion of their own money into the private equity firm's funds from its inception through the end of last year.

The amount of distributions, including profits and return of capital, in 2011 from these co-investments was $42.9 million for Black, $35.1 million for Rowan and $10.5 million for Harris. Apollo did not disclose how much the actual profits from the co-investments were.

Last year, Black, Rowan and Harris invested $15.6 million, $18.2 million and $4.2 million through the firm's funds, respectively, the firm said.

The payouts for Apollo's executives follow large distributions for senior executives at rivals such as Blackstone Group LP, KKR & Co LP and Carlyle Group LP.

Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwarzman got about $213.5 million in salary, share of profits and cash distributions from his holdings in the world's largest private equity firm in 2011, up 33% from the previous year.

KKR revealed that co-founders Henry Kravis and George Roberts each received roughly $94 million in compensation and cash dividends for 2011.

Carlyle, which is planning to go public, revealed founders William Conway, Daniel D'Aniello and David Rubenstein received $134 million each in cash distributions and $3.8 million in executive compensation in 2011.

On top of this, Conway, D'Aniello and Rubenstein received $70.8 million, $77.6 million and $56.8 million from previous investments.

Apollo, which was founded in 1990, had total assets under management of $75.2 billion at the end of last year.