Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI) is a commercial real estate mortgage REIT that originates, acquires, and manages debt secured by commercial real estate. ARI's core product is floating-rate first mortgage bridge loans made to institutional real estate sponsors repositioning, developing, or stabilizing properties in the U.S. and Western Europe. ARI is externally managed by an affiliate of Apollo Global Management, which sources and underwrites all investments on ARI's behalf, giving ARI access to Apollo's broader origination pipeline. ARI earns money by capturing the spread between the yield on its loans and its cost of funds — senior loans are financed with secured repo-style credit facilities at spreads well below what ARI charges borrowers. As loans repay (typically within 2–3 years), ARI recycles the capital into new loans. ARI's portfolio is concentrated in senior first mortgage loans (~99% of loans by value), spanning residential, office, hospitality, and other property types. The roughly 50/50 U.S./Western Europe geographic split is unusual among peers. ARI also holds real estate owned (REO) assets acquired through loan workouts, including a luxury condo development at 111 West 57th Street in Manhattan and a Brooklyn multifamily development. Management's near-term priority is monetizing these REO assets and redeploying the freed equity into levered loans. In January 2026, ARI entered an agreement to sell its entire CRE loan portfolio to Athene, an Apollo subsidiary, which would represent a fundamental change to ARI's operating model.