Antony P. Ressler is an American billionaire businessman. He co-founded the private equity firms Apollo Global Management in 1990, and Ares Management in 1997.
As of May 2024, his net worth was estimated by Forbes at $11.3 billion.
Ressler was born in 1960 to a Jewish family, one of five children of Dorothy and Ira Ressler. His father was an attorney and World War II veteran. Ressler earned a BSFS from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and an MBA from Columbia Business School. After graduating, he worked at Drexel Burnham Lambert, eventually reaching senior vice president in the high yield bond department with responsibility for the new issue/syndicate desk.
In 1990, on the heels of the collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert, he co-founded the private equity firm Apollo Global Management with Leon Black, Drexel's managing director, head of the Mergers & Acquisitions Group, and co-head of the Corporate Finance Department; John Hannan, Drexel's former co-director of international finance; Craig Cogut, a lawyer who worked with Drexel's high-yield division in Los Angeles; Arthur Bilger, the former head of the Drexel's corporate finance department; and Marc Rowan, Josh Harris and Michael Gross, all of whom worked under Black in the mergers and acquisitions department.
In 1997, he co-founded Ares Management with former Apollo Global Management co-worker John H. Kissick and Bennett Rosenthal, who joined the group from the global leveraged finance group at Merrill Lynch.
