Apollo Taps Bert Crouch to Lead Apollo Realty Income Solutions as Real Estate Team Reshuffles
The same September 30 effective date brings a new portfolio management lineup and investment committee at Apollo Diversified Real Estate Fund, where Spencer Propper is stepping away.
September 30, 2026
Bert Crouch, the Apollo partner who runs the firm's real estate equity business, will become chief executive officer and president of Apollo Realty Income Solutions and join its board on September 30, 2026. He succeeds Jess Lipsey, who is resigning all three roles at the non-traded REIT to pursue other opportunities.
The move is one of several coordinated changes to Apollo's real estate wealth platform that take effect the same day. At Apollo Diversified Real Estate Fund, the firm's real estate interval fund, portfolio manager Spencer Propper is stepping down, the adviser's investment committee is being reconstituted, and a new chief accounting officer is arriving.
Changes at Apollo Realty Income Solutions
Lipsey informed the REIT of his resignation on September 28, and the board appointed Crouch the same day. The company said Lipsey's departure did not stem from any disagreement with the company, its adviser ARIS Management, or Apollo over operations, policies, or practices.
Crouch takes over a REIT whose aggregate NAV reached about $1.78 billion at the end of August, up from roughly $1.7 billion at the end of May. Its 2025 annual report showed about $1.5 billion in cumulative net proceeds raised since inception.
Crouch, 47, is a member of Apollo's leadership team. He heads the firm's real estate equity franchise, which includes Bridge Investment Group, the real estate platform Apollo acquired in 2025, as well as Apollo's legacy strategies.
Crouch joined Apollo from Invesco Real Estate. He was head of North America there from 2020, and he was chief executive officer of Invesco Commercial Real Estate Finance Trust from its 2023 launch. Starting in 2010, he was also lead portfolio manager on a range of opportunistic and credit funds. Before Invesco, he directed acquisitions at Presidio Investments, a Hunt Realty Investments subsidiary focused on secondary commercial mortgages and public real estate securities. Earlier, he originated and acquired structured commercial mortgage products in Wells Fargo's Real Estate Merchant Banking group in New York.
Stuart Rothstein remains chair of the REIT's board, a role he has held since June 2022.
Changes at Apollo Diversified Real Estate Fund
Propper has resigned from Apollo and will stop serving as a portfolio manager of the fund on September 30. He will stay with Apollo as a partner through March 31, 2027, to help with the transition. The same prospectus supplement also removes Lipsey from the fund's disclosures.
After the changes take effect, the fund's management lineup will look like this:
- Portfolio managers: Stuart Rothstein and Jonathan Stachel. Rothstein is Apollo's chief operating officer for real estate and for asset-backed finance, and he is chief executive officer of Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance. Stachel, a principal in Apollo's real estate group, is being appointed associate portfolio manager.
- Adviser's investment committee: Crouch, Rothstein, and Stachel. Crouch and Stachel are joining, while Propper and Lipsey are leaving.
- Chief accounting officer: Joseph Durkin, an Apollo principal who has served since 2025 as chief accounting officer of MidCap Financial Investment Corporation and MidCap Apollo Institutional Private Lending. He was previously a principal at Churchill Asset Management from 2019 to 2025.
Stachel has worked on the fund since before it carried the Apollo name. Before joining Apollo in 2022, he was an associate at Griffin Capital Asset Management, where he worked on the Griffin Institutional Access Real Estate Fund, the vehicle that is now Apollo Diversified Real Estate Fund. Before that, he worked at Research Affiliates.
The investment committee sets the adviser's overall investment policies and strategies, approves the private portfolio funds under consideration for the fund, and oversees the portfolio.
