Private Equity Firms’ Pay Ratios Draw Scrutiny

Could Wall Street firms such as Apollo Global Management LLC and Carlyle Group LP really have some of the smallest pay gaps between their CEOs and average workers?

That’s the question that has some consumer and worker advocates raising their eyebrows as reports required by the Securities and Exchange Commission disclose for the first time how much CEOs make compared with median workers.

Showing some of the narrowest gaps are publicly traded private equity firms where top executives have an estimated net worth in the billions of dollars, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Bartlett Naylor, Public Citizen’s financial policy advocate, said the private equity firms’ narrow ratios present an “optics problem,” especially ...