M&A: Additional details disclosed on Apollo's new yieldco strategy for DG solar following recent deal

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Apollo had some familiarity with the 148 MW portfolio of operating projects in Maine and Illinois it just acquired on behalf of its new platform Virtus Power.

Summit Ridge Energy (SRE) formed two separate partnerships with Osaka Gas to develop projects in those two states in the past two years. Apollo made a USD 175m investment in SRE in 2022.

SRE recently got acquired by Global Infrastructure Partners in a deal announced last month.

However, development risk is not anticipated to be a part of the Virtus strategy as it will be focused on acquiring 1-to-5 MW projects, either operating or at notice-to-proceed. A source close to Apollo indicated that the asset manager was getting fatigued by DG development platforms that could be over-leveraged and heavy on general and administrative (G&A) costs.

Virtus will primarily be investing in solar projects, it is also open to evaluating opportunities in storage and intends to offer different structures ranging from outright deals, preferred equity and/or joint ventures.

The executive leadership of Virtus came out of Apollo’s deal to acquire asset manager Bridge Investment Group in September 2025. This included Bridge Renewable Energy, then a developer and owner of distributed energy. Kevin Donlin, the platform’s CEO, was formerly the managing director at Bridge Renewable Energy.

Target

The US distributed generation market continues to remain super-fragmented, amidst increased demand electrification, giving Virtus a good opportunity since it is not a developer.

The source indicated that there were plenty of opportunities to invest in de-risked assets across Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Illinois and other markets.

Virtus out-sources a lot of third-party services such as operations and maintenance but expects over time to add more staffing to bolster its under-writing capabilities.

NPM Interconnection queue data is tracking roughly 34 GW of operating assets between 1 MW-and-5 MW from the likes of Cypress Creek Energy, AES Clean Energy, Strata Clean Energy, Generate Capital and Nexamp leading the way.

Separately, NPM Interconnection Queue data is also tracking 427 MW of projects, in the 1-to-5 MW range, that reached an advanced stage in the 12 months prior to August 2026.