Ares Management

Ares originates primarily through its deep relationships with private equity sponsors. Over 300 investment professionals in credit maintain constant dialogue with mid-market sponsors across the US and Europe. The firm also participates in club deals and has dedicated origination teams embedded in regional offices from Atlanta to Frankfurt. This sponsor-network model is reinforced by Ares's ability to write large checks — often $200 million to $500 million in a single transaction — which makes it a go-to lender when speed and certainty matter.

Ares is a non-bank lender, which means it is not constrained by the same regulatory capital requirements that limit the lending capacity of commercial banks. This allows Ares to hold loans through economic cycles and to structure bespoke financing packages. The firm's permanent-capital base — raised through closed-end funds, the insurance platform, and the public equity listing — means it can provide committed capital that is not subject to short-term redemption risk.

The March 2024 acquisition of GLP Capital Partners' international operations, excluding China, brought Ares $44 billion in managed assets concentrated in logistics, digital infrastructure, and renewable energy. It transforms Ares into one of the world's largest institutional real asset managers and adds a sizeable infrastructure secondaries capability. The deal also deepens Ares's footprint in Japan and Europe.

Each of the three major platforms — credit, private equity, and real assets — operates its own investment committee. The credit committee is led by CEO Michael Arougheti and Co-Head of Credit Kipp deVeer. The private equity committee includes Co-Head of Private Equity Bennett Rosenthal and Antony Ressler. Real assets decisions run through a dedicated committee chaired by Head of Real Assets Raj Agrawal. Final authority for large commitments rests with the relevant platform committee.

Co-founder Antony Ressler was part of the Guggenheim Baseball Management group that acquired the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012. Ares Management holds a passive minority interest in the team through its private equity funds. The investment is a legacy position from the original acquisition and is not indicative of a broader sports-investing strategy at the firm.

Because Ares trades on the NYSE, allocators gain visibility into quarterly financials and asset-level disclosures that are unavailable at purely private firms. The trade-off is governance risk: public shareholders and fund limited partners have interests that do not always align. Ares mitigates this with a partnership governance structure that grants founders class B voting shares. The firm also discloses a long-term performance track record through its SEC filings.

The Ares Insurance Solutions platform manages approximately $180 billion of assets on behalf of insurers, representing over 40 percent of the firm's total assets under management. Ares acquired Aspida Holdings in 2020 to anchor its reinsurance and retirement-platform strategy. The insurance channel provides permanent, sticky capital that Ares deploys primarily into its credit strategies, creating a structural capital advantage.