Apollo has agreed to take a minority equity stake in Mubadala Capital, the alternative asset management arm of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company. Other strategic investors will join it as minority shareholders, and together they are expected to commit an aggregate $5bn to Mubadala Capital’s investment strategies at initial close. The deal was announced on 26 October and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory and legal approvals.
Founded in 2011, Mubadala Capital runs a core alternatives business managing more than $60bn across five strategies. Apollo, which managed about $1.05trn at the end of June, is a long-standing partner. Hani Barhoush, Mubadala Capital’s chief executive, called it “a trusted partner to Mubadala and across Abu Dhabi for many years”.
What the deal is, and is not
The $5bn is not the price. It is money Apollo and the other newcomers expect to commit to Mubadala Capital’s funds as clients. The price, the valuation and the size of the stake have not been disclosed. CNBC had earlier reported a stake of nearly 10%, according to Enterprise; the companies gave no figure.
Nor is it a change of control. Mubadala Investment Company remains the majority shareholder, and Mubadala Capital says it will keep “its own governance structure”, with its management “retaining full authority over investment decisions and operations”.
What it is, in effect, is a strategic GP stake: the buyer takes equity in the manager and becomes a large client at the same time. Enterprise counts this as the third time Mubadala Capital has sold equity to an outsider. By its account, the founders of Silver Rock Financial, a US credit manager in which Mubadala Capital bought a 42% stake, took equity in Mubadala Capital in 2024. In April 2025 TWG Global agreed to commit $2.5bn to Mubadala Capital products and take a strategic minority stake, while Mubadala Capital agreed to anchor a $10bn investment in TWG. Separately, in July this year Mubadala moved management of its $25bn credit portfolio to Mubadala Capital while keeping ownership of the assets; that was not a sale of equity.
Why it matters for long-horizon owners
GP-stake deal volume reached $3.5bn in 2025 up to the end of October, on course to beat the 2015 record of $3.6bn, the Wall Street Journal reported in December, citing PitchBook data; a Dechert survey found that 77% of fund managers planned a stake sale within 24 months. The sellers it described were private-equity managers needing cash to expand, pay out ageing partners or fund bigger commitments to new funds. Mubadala Capital is different: a sovereign-owned manager selling equity to widen its client base.
For sovereign funds, pension schemes and other clients of Mubadala Capital, three questions follow. The first is alignment. Mubadala Capital “was built to manage the sovereign investor’s own money”, as Enterprise put it, and outside shareholders will want it to grow fee-earning third-party assets. The second is terms: when equity holders are also large clients, other limited partners will want to know whether those clients receive better fees or first call on co-investments. The third is governance: the promise of independent decision-making will be tested when the interests of the sovereign parent and outside clients diverge. Other sovereign funds with in-house managers will be watching, though Enterprise notes that each of Mubadala Capital’s three equity sales was built differently.
There are reasons for restraint. Without a price, outsiders cannot tell how much of the economics sits in the equity and how much in the commitments attached to it. Capital has also flowed the other way: John Zito, co-president of Apollo Asset Management, said Mubadala “has been a trusted partner in seeding and scaling a number of our strategies over the years”. And the Journal noted that buyers of GP stakes typically want only top performers, so this deal says more about Mubadala Capital than about a broad trend.
What to watch
Completion is due in the fourth quarter of 2026. Before then, watch for the names of the other strategic investors, any disclosure of the stake’s size or valuation, and whether outside investors back the credit business that moved across in July. Enterprise says the move gives Mubadala Capital a bigger platform to pitch to institutional investors.
Sources
- Mubadala Capital Announces Strategic Investment from Apollo, Apollo Global Management (Business Wire), 26 October 2026
- Apollo takes minority stake in Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Capital, The National, 26 October 2026
- Apollo buys into Mubadala Capital, bringing USD 5 bn in commitments with it, Enterprise, 27 October 2026
- TWG Global and Mubadala Capital to Enter Multi-Billion Dollar Investment Alliance, Mubadala Capital, 30 April 2025
- More Private-Equity Firms Plan to Sell Stakes to Raise Cash, The Wall Street Journal (Dow Jones Newswires, via Tiger Brokers), 24 December 2025