Blog Post
Apollo’s three roles in the ADT buyout
Apollo Global Management has grown a head for every part of the capital stack. Its role in Joshua Kushner’s $15.3 billion takeover of home security company ADT shows how leveraged finance is changing: one firm can now be the lender, the backstop and the equity partner at once.
Octus broke the news of ADT’s take-private on October 27, with sources disclosing that Apollo has committed roughly $9.6 billion in debt and $1.65 billion in preferred equity to back the deal. It’s the first major LBO for Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Holdings and one of the largest buyouts of 2026.
For Apollo, the ADT financing is a return to familiar territory. The firm sold its remaining equity stake in the home security company in May, just months before emerging as a key financing provider for its takeover.
If funded in the private credit market, the loan would be the largest on record for the asset class, dwarfing the roughly $5.3 billion financing that Oak Hill Advisors led for Finastra in August 2023. But Apollo’s most impressive move may be the one it never has to make.
Thrive’s preferred route is a roughly $9.6 billion bank package, with Apollo’s commitment standing behind it as the backstop. Apollo may never fund a dollar of the loan, yet it has given a relatively new sponsor the financing certainty to chase one of the year’s biggest deals without relying entirely on the banks.
As large buyouts return, the line between private credit and traditional banking is getting harder to see. Some alternative asset managers can now pair the underwriting capacity of Wall Street investment banks with the flexibility to provide capital across different parts of a transaction. Sponsors get financing options that once required several institutions.
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