I'm not sure if that was ever really the intention. I know it was suggested for a number of years.
If you look at Apollo's business model they tend to invest with large strategic stakes with high quality business without actually taking full control. They look to then partner over long periods of time to extra value from that partnership. This is how most of their private market (equity) investments work.
Given challengers business model and cheap valuation, buying a large strategic stake without taking control makes perfect sense for Apollo.
My question is why sell now for Apollo, to me it looks like Challenger is on the brink of an upgrade cycle. Challenger valuation is extremely cheap and there aren't many other ASX companies that are likely to grow at 10% you can buy on nearly a 10 P/E. This brings me back to my earlier point that I think Apollo really need the capital for something.
Apollo have a lot of office assets in San Fran. Could be unrelated.
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