Jeffrey Epstein was bad. These days, it is bad for business to have been pals with Jeffrey Epstein. Quite a few public company executives were pals with Jeffrey Epstein. The lawsuits write themselves, though I think this is the first one I have actually seen:
“Shareholders sued Apollo Global Management and its billionaire co-founders Leon Black and Marc Rowan on Monday in a proposed class action for allegedly defrauding them for nearly five years about the private capital firm’s business dealings with disgraced sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein.”
“According to a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, the shareholders alleged the defendants falsely denied in several regulatory filings in 2021 and 2022 ever ?doing business with Epstein, though Epstein “was heavily involved and frequently communicated with Apollo Global’s senior leadership” about ?Apollo’s business during the 2010s.” […]
Here, the complaint says that Apollo lied about the extent of its Epstein ties, but “the truth [began] to slowly materialize and emerge through partial disclosures” beginning on Feb. 1. And in fact, Apollo’s stock is down almost 20% since the start of February. Is that because of what the market has learned about Apollo’s Epstein ties? Well. Some other stuff is going on, in the alternative investment management space. Blackstone Group Inc., KKR & Co. Inc. and Blue Owl Capital Inc. are all down more than Apollo during that period. There will presumably be some arguments over loss causation. But “Apollo had some Epstein ties, they came out and the stock dropped 20%” is a pretty irresistible combination for a securities class action lawyer.
