City profile

Leon Black

The co-founder of Wall Street buyout firm Apollo Global Management is “one of the most successful financiers of his generation”, said the FT. But Leon Black now faces a public “reckoning” over his ties with the convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his cell in 2019. Following an independent inquiry commissioned by his firm, Black has announced his retirement as CEO after 30 years. He’ll be replaced later this year by fellow co-founder Marc Rowan.

The review cleared Black of any involvement with Epstein’s criminal activities – pointing to a “professional relationship” to explain why he paid $158m to Epstein over a five-year period to 2017, said the FT. It was an apparently successful one. Indeed, Black, who was worth $7.7bn in 2019, “attributes a sizeable part” of his wealth to “the late paedophile’s financial acumen”. The report states that Epstein handled everything from tax audits to “a dispute over the ownership of a sculpture by Picasso”. He was apparently the “architect” of the Apollo chief’s private office, which managed his investments.

In return, Black’s fees “bankrolled” Epstein following his 2008 guilty plea to a prostitution charge, said The New York Times. Black, who is also chair of New York’s MoMA, believed his adviser deserved a second chance. But disquiet about his links to Epstein has been building. “Many of Apollo’s biggest clients” have been “awaiting the results of the report”. The one firm conclusion? Leon Black’s long reign as the “face and voice” of Apollo is over.