Why Apollo wants open rails:
Apollo Global Management just crossed $1 trillion in AUM.
And its COO of Client & Product Solutions, Jake Walker, has a counterintuitive proposal for the rest of the industry: build the rails together, and keep them open.
I sat down with Jake on the Modern Capital Podcast. He has spent two decades moving money. Casey Quirk, BNY Mellon, T. Rowe Price (which grew from $400B to $1.9T on his watch), now Apollo. Few people understand the plumbing of distribution better.
Here's the problem:
Private markets are joining the $147 trillion world of traditional asset management.
But the rails that carry a fund to your account were built over 30 years for mutual funds and ETFs. Custodians, transfer agents, the wealth tech stack. None of it was built for this.
The result today: subscription docs still signed by hand. Failed trades (NIGOs) creeping into double digits.
In Jake's words, "something's gotta give."
Here's the math:
Roughly $10M to wire one endpoint (a distributor connected to a transfer agent and fund admin)
50 to 70 endpoints across the industry
Jake's estimate: $400M to $800M total to build the rails
His word on that number: "pennies for everybody."
So the money isn't the blocker. Cooperation is.
Why it matters:
Every other industry that hit this point already solved it.
Banks agreed on standards for derivatives and payments. Visa got its issuing banks to build one network together. Netflix and its rivals co-founded an open-media alliance, because they always planned to win on content and let the pipes be shared.
Asset management and wealth management have just never had to sit at the same table and agree.
This is the first time.
In Jake's words:
"I will compete on brand, content, client service and investment performance. I will not need to compete on how the infrastructure works."
Thank you Jake Walker for a terrific conversation.
Listen to the full conversation here, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
This conversation is part of a larger discussion happening in London in next week.
On June 25, The 2026 Private Markets Technology Summit convenes in London around one question: how does private markets build for scale?
The agenda includes sessions on digital rails, wealth channel distribution infrastructure and the operational buildout required to get there.
