Buyout firm plans private placement

New York buyout firm Apollo Management is proposing to raise as much as $1.1 billion in a private placement of stock.

The plan, reported by the Financial Times on Tuesday, follows moves by several other large private equity firms, including Blackstone Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., to sell stakes by going public.

The company plans to sell a stake of about 12.5%, implying a market value of as much as $8.8 billion for the entire firm, the newspaper said, citing unidentified people who had seen the offering documents.

The offering would be made under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Rule 144A, which governs sales of unregistered stock. The shares would trade on an electronic market run by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Credit Suisse Group would also underwrite the offering and would make a market in the shares after they are issued.

Los Angeles-based investment firm Oaktree Capital Management and its principals used the Goldman Sachs market in May to sell an approximately 14% stake for more than $800 million to fewer than 50 large investors.

Apollo is separately selling minority stakes to the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government and to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the Financial Times said.

Apollo was founded by Leon Black, who like others at Apollo was a financier at now-defunct Drexel Burnham Lambert.