Apollo Global Management's (APO  ) CFO Mark Rowan called last week's investor reaction to software stocks "extreme." "Software is an amazing business," Rowan said on a Monday conference call. "The market's overreaction to software is extreme. But clearly, factors have changed, and we have good software companies and bad software and good valuations and bad valuations. If you were aggressive at a point in time when valuations were very high, and not a lot of diligence was being done, and people were expecting growth forever, you're playing defense now. I assure you, we are on offense. Software will be a very attractive sector, albeit not at the valuation levels and with the kind of underwriting that has been done previously."

The comments came after software stock prices plunged, largely due to investor fears about AI.

Rowan noted that its private equity business has zero exposure to software. In its Athene balance sheet, its software exposure is "closer to zero than to one" and in ADS, half the exposure of its large peers.

The firm saw inflows of $42 billion in the fourth quarter, bringing total assets under management (AUM) to $938 billion. That's a 25 percent increase year-over-year.

Rowan called Apollo's performance "an exceptional quarter capping off an exceptional year."

The firm delivered 22 percent growth in management fees, driven by third-party asset management inflows into both credit and equity strategies, strong capital deployment, and robust growth at Athene.

Sixty percent of full-year transaction activity was driven by credit. All credit buckets were up 8 to 12 percent. The CFO stated that he believes all trends they have seen in 2025 will continue in 2026 and 2027.

"Understanding that these markets require different products, different product structures, different access points, different investments in technology to serve, and you will see these markets mature more and more over time," said Rowan.

Fee related earnings (FRE) totaled $690 million, a 25 percent jump over the year earlier. The CFO noted that he expects FRE to grow by 20 percent or more, with 75 percent of revenue coming from well-established core businesses such as asset-backed finance, direct lending, multi-credit, and hybrid, as well as the annualization of growth already in place.

The firm also saw record quarterly origination activity of $97 billion in the fourth quarter and $309 billion in 2025 driven by significant contributions from core credit and origination platforms.

Inflows from Asset Management of $145 billion in 2025 included $28 billion in the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter inflows were driven by strong third-party institutional and global wealth inflows, primarily into Credit-focused strategies.

Apollo currently sits with $30 billion in dry powder in its equity segment. It also has $42 billion in its credit segment, totaling $73 billion in dry powder.