Apollo hires former US Senator

Apollo Global Management has hired former US Senator from Indiana Evan Bayh as a senior advisor to concentrate on public policy, the firm said Friday.

Bayh was elected to the Senate in 1998 and announced last year that he would not run for re-election. Prior to the Senate, Bayh served as the Governor of Indiana.

Apollo has been beefing up its management team ahead of a public filing on the New York Stock Exchange. The firm hired Marc Spilker, former co-head of investment management for Goldman Sachs, to work as the firm’s first ever president.

Apollo also hired Gene Donnelly, a former executive at PricewaterhouseCoopers, as chief financial officer; Sanjay Patel, former European co-head of private equity and junior debt at Goldman Sachs, as international head of private equity, and NYSE Euronext executive Gary Stein as head of investor relations.

Public policy has become increasingly important part of the private equity and private equity real estate industry over the past few years as politicians looking to crack down on what they see as abusive practices in financial services. Headline grabbing takeover battles and the huge levels of debt that characterised the boom years of the credit bubble left a bad impression of the industry in Washington, DC.

Private equity and real estate firms have had to battle potential tax increases on their compensation and regulation regimes that force firms to come more directly under the jurisdiction of the US Securities and Exchange Commission than ever before.

Bayh’s exact focus is unclear, and the firm did not comment beyond a brief statement. The former Senator joins a host of former high profile personalities that have joined private equity firms in recent years.

Ken Mehlman, former chairman of the Republican Party, joined Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in 2008. The Carlyle Group hired former President George W. Bush’s economic advisor Bryan Corbett as part of its global government and regulatory affairs team in Washington, DC.