(Bloomberg) -- Atlas SP Partners, the structured-credit unit of Apollo Global Management Inc., has named Carey Lathrop as its chief executive officer, according to a statement seen by Bloomberg, three months after the exit of his predecessor Jay Kim.
Lathrop, 62, had been serving as interim CEO since August. A three-decade Citigroup Inc. veteran, he joined Apollo in 2022 as chief operating officer of the firm’s credit business, a role he is now vacating.
The appointment comes roughly 20 months after Apollo scooped up the lending platform from Credit Suisse Group AG, turning the high-performing business into a pillar of its strategy to build a credit machine that rivals Wall Street banks. Apollo expects to grow Atlas into an as much as $70 billion origination platform in the coming years, the firm has said.
The business, which packages loans such as those tied to cars and homes into bonds, has already achieved a number of milestones under Lathrop’s interim leadership. It recently secured billions of dollars in financing from BNP Paribas SA to expand in private lending. In September it received its broker-dealer license, which allows it to start trading securities to support Atlas’ primary issuance business. Still, he’ll need to continue integrating the unit into the broader Apollo ecosystem, an undertaking that has at times proven challenging.
“Atlas is at the top of the list of our 16 origination platforms, being the most strategic and fast growing one,” Apollo Co-President Jim Zelter said in an interview. “Carey is the ultimate roll-up the sleeves type of leader, and will be able to fine tune the line between partnership and independence between Apollo and Atlas.”
Lathrop started his career in the late 1980s at Salomon Brothers, the brokerage that eventually became part of Citigroup. He rose through the ranks of the firm’s credit-trading business, with early stints running the firm’s US investment-grade syndication desk and global emerging-markets credit-trading team.
He left Citigroup in early 2022, having helped lead the bank’s vast trading operation through the pandemic, a period that saw the group bring in $39 billion of revenue over a two-year span.
“Credit goes through very long cycles, and it’s hard to find someone who has run a business through ups and downs,” said Paco Ybarra, who previously worked with Lathrop as head of Citigroup’s broader institutional clients group. “Carey has that knowledge.”
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Apollo formed Atlas in February 2023 through the takeover of Credit Suisse’s securitized products business, which had been one of the top arrangers of asset-backed and residential mortgage-backed securities in the US. That unit, which dated back to Wall Street’s early mortgage-bond days in the 1980s, became one of the investment bank’s riskiest and most lucrative.
Atlas, which has more than $40 billion of balance sheet capacity, has roughly doubled its headcount to about 350 staffers since Apollo bought the firm, Zelter said.
Earlier this month the company’s funding subsidiary, Atlas Warehouse Lending Company, received blue-chip credit ratings from three major bond graders. That’s expected to allow the company to lower its borrowing costs, Bloomberg reported.
“We want Lathrop to continue growing Atlas; create new products and expand the global footprint with a focus on Europe and Asia,” Zelter added.
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