Apollo fundraising while labor disputes persist
May 6, 2025
Apollo Global Management announced its eleventh flagship fund in late 2024.[1] Despite Apollo’s co-head of equity forecasting “a very successful Fund XI,”[2] labor disputes and other controversies in Apollo’s portfolio may signal less than favorable returns or reputational risks for investors.
Concerns from numerous Apollo investors led the private equity firm to announce Responsible Workforce Policies in 2024. These policies commit the firm’s portfolio companies to certain due diligence efforts, some general efforts at engaging employees at its portfolio companies, and generally complying with US labor and employment law. However, multiple labor disputes and accusations at Apollo-owned firms have begun or continued after these policies became public.
In recent years, Apollo has taken companies employing tens of thousands of workers into bankruptcy, including Caesars Entertainment, Linens ‘n Things, and Edge. Additionally, PESP’s 2023 analysis found that Apollo had a low number of unionized workers in its portfolio companies’ workforce and a high number of unfair labor practice violations it settled.
Apollo Fund IX owns Heritage Grocers, the holding company for California-based Cardenas Markets. In March 2023, employees at Cardenas filed complaints with the California Civil Rights Department alleging sexual harassment and retaliation for reporting the harassment to Cardenas.[3] Shortly after, Cardenas terminated one of the employees who filed the complaint.[4] Cardenas also has a pending class action lawsuit involving allegations of meal, break, and pay violations and a multi-million dollar class action settlement, in which Cardenas did not admit to wrongdoing.[5][6] Apollo, despite its stated commitment to respect workers’ rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining, has refused for more than a year to step in and lead negotiations on a neutrality agreement at Cardenas.[7]
Workers at another Heritage Grocers subsidiary, Tony’s Fresh Markets, have faced an aggressive anti-union campaign by the company.[8] Tony’s hired a union-busting consultant called People Results to send workers anti-union communications and immigration-related misinformation. Tony’s told workers that “UFCW has previously agreed to member firings over immigration-related matters,” implying that joining the union would lead to immigration-related termination.[9] Amidst this anti-union effort by Apollo’s portfolio company, the union lost an election in March 2025.[10]
The allegations at Heritage Grocers’ subsidiaries, Tony’s and Cardenas, could create risks to limited partner returns, including alleged violations of workers’ rights, potential financial losses from litigation, possible lost sales from reputational damage, and reduced productivity from poor workplace morale and conflict. They may also run counter to Apollo’sown Workforce Principles and limited partner investment principles.
Apollo also has an extensive footprint in the healthcare sector, owning approximately 220 hospitals across 36 states through two of the largest hospital systems in the US, Lifepoint Health and ScionHealth. The hospital systems Apollo owns are highly indebted, have cut operating costs and charity care, and in some cases reduced services, received poor quality rankings, and attracted regulatory scrutiny. According to The Lown Institute Hospital Index, which ranks hospitals and health systems based on health equity, value, and outcomes, multiple Lifepoint facilities rank among the worst hospitals in their states. ScionHealth’s high debt load and financial distress may have led to the recent closure of 3 hospitals that resulted in the loss of hundreds of hospital workers’ jobs.[11] Apollo’s ownership of major rural hospital chains poses risks to patients and healthcare workers.
Read More: Apollo’s Stranglehold on Hospitals Harms Patients and Healthcare Workers
Private equity firms like Apollo charge a steep price to invest on the promise that the returns of private equity investments will broadly outperform public markets. The industry’s tendency to focus on short-term gain rather than on longevity and growth may indicate that long-term investments in private equity are not as lucrative as investors were promised. Between 2010 and 2020, public pension funds’ private equity investments performed worse than the S&P 500 in the same time frame.[12]
As Apollo Global Management gears up to solicit commitments for its new fund, Apollo Fund XI, investors should consider delaying or declining future commitments to Apollo until it addresses labor disputes in its portfolio, commits all portfolio companies agree to refrain from hiring anti-union consultants, and demonstrates that it has mitigated labor and patient health risks within its portfolio.
[1]https://www.dakota.com/fundraising-news/report-apollo-gearing-up-for-25b-flagship-pe-fundraise-in-2025
[2]https://www.dakota.com/fundraising-news/report-apollo-gearing-up-for-25b-flagship-pe-fundraise-in-2025
[3] Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Bernardino, Case #CIVSB2416006, filed 5/3/2024; Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Bernardino, Case #CIVSB2409366, filed 3/20/2024; Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Bernardino, Case #CIVSB2431480, filed 10/31/2024
[4]https://ufcw1167.org/rosies_corner.html; https://norcalrecord.com/stories/670609011-plaintiff-alleges-grocery-chain-cardenas-markets-fostered-hostile-work-environment
[5] 2021 settlement with similar allegations predating Apollo’s ownership: Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Bernadino, Case CIVDS1917380, ORDER GRANTING FINAL APPROVAL OF CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT AND FINAL JUDGMENT, p. 4.
[6] Superior Court for the State of California, County of Riverside, Case # RIC-1905393, LILIANA ESQUIVEL v. Cardenas Markets, Order and Judgment Approving the Parties’ PAGA Settlement Agreement, dated 8/29/2023, p. 12. Complaint alleged violation of Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Order No. 7, Section 14 (A) and (B): “A) all working employees shall be provided with suitable seats when the nature of the work reasonably permits the use of seats; and (B) when employees are not engaged in the active duties of their employment and the nature of the work requires standing, an adequate number of suitable seats shall be placed in reasonable proximity to the work area and employees shall be permitted to use such seats when it does not interfere with the performance of their duties.”
[7]https://apolloathenewrong.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/03/Apollo-and-Heritage-Grocers-Fact-Sheet-032025.pdf;https://www.google.com/url?q=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nmCFgCXelXYZQSeWunl7PEvDOb2WN0K4/view?usp%3Dsharing&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1744159824000530&usg=AOvVaw2-2RmbMwzS8QTd02ITTb23
[8]https://apolloathenewrong.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/03/Apollo-and-Heritage-Grocers-Fact-Sheet-032025.pdf
[9]https://apolloathenewrong.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/03/Apollo-and-Heritage-Grocers-Fact-Sheet-032025.pdf
[10]https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/03/28/tonys-workers-grocery-union/
[11]https://pestakeholder.org/news/apollo-owned-hospitals-close-amid-declining-financial-condition/
[12]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/04/business/is-private-equity-overrated.html
