Apollo, a global investment manager, completed the merger with Athene, a retirement services company, at a $11bn valuation. "Apollo occupies an enviable position in our industry, and we have been keenly focused on how to evolve our differentiated platform for long-term success. The Apollo Athene combination is all about alignment, turbo charging growth initiatives and dramatically enhancing shareholder value. Apollo’s conversion to a simplified structure with a single class of common stock with equal voting rights and empowering the full Board with management responsibility of the business are also two significant steps towards these ends," Leon Black, Apollo Founder and Chairman.