(Bloomberg) -- Apollo Global Management Inc. hired the former head of Germany’s financial watchdog BaFin as a senior adviser as it builds out its investments in the European finance industry.
Felix Hufeld, who resigned from the regulator in the wake of the Wirecard scandal, joined the New York-based investment firm a few months ago to advise it on issues including financial regulation in Europe, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing the private information.
Apollo is among investors that have scooped up European banking and insurance assets on the cheap in recent years, betting there’s value in an industry that’s emerging from years of negative interest rates. It owns German regional lender Oldenburgische Landesbank AG, which under Apollo’s ownership has grown through a series of acquisitions.
Hufeld, 61, doesn’t have a role in overseeing OLB, which is being supervised by BaFin, the people said.
A spokesperson for Apollo declined to comment.
Read More on Bloomberg Intelligence about Apollo’s ‘Secret Sauce’
Hufeld left BaFin in January 2021 after the watchdog drew criticism for its perceived failure to run proper checks on the German payments provider Wirecard AG in the years leading up to the firm’s spectacular collapse.
He remained off the radar for a little over a year until he emerged in May as a partner of Rantum Capital Management GmbH, a German investment firm run by Morgan Stanley’s former German head Dirk Notheis that offers equity investments and private debt to small and medium-sized companies.
In addition to its bank investments, Apollo is also a major shareholder in Athora Holding Ltd, an insurance holding that recently bought 16 billion euros worth of German life and pensions insurance reserves from French insurer Axa.
(Adds Hufeld’s age in fourth paragraph.)
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