Ares AUM hits $546bn in Q1
Ares Management raised more than $20bn (£15bn) in the first quarter of 2025, while assets under management (AUM) grew by 27 per cent year-on-year to $546bn, boosted by demand for private credit.
The alternative asset manager reported fee-related earnings of $367.3m for the period, a 22 per cent year-on-year increase, while realised income grew by 40 per cent to $405.9m.
“Within credit, our third opportunistic credit fund completed its first close this quarter now having raised approximately $4.6bn from a group of new and existing investors,” said chief executive Mike Arougheti.
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“This is a great start for the next vintage in this fund series, which is particularly well positioned to take advantage of market volatility in both the public and private markets.
“Our public and private BDCs combined raised over $4bn of AUM in the quarter and our semi-liquid European direct lending product raised over $630m and now stands at over $3.0bn in AUM after only 15 months. We believe it is the largest fund of its kind in the market.
“Our open-end core alternative credit fund raised approximately $400m and surpassed $6bn in AUM. We also issued two new CLOs in the quarter raising $1bn in aggregate.”
Arougheti said that Ares can benefit from being overweight in assets that are senior to equity in the capital structure, given the current uncertain macroeconomic environment.
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“We believe these credit assets are more defensive and insulated from changes in cash flows and market values,” he added. “In addition, when it becomes more difficult to sell companies or assets, it can be easier to deploy capital in credit as the need for more creative financing solutions increases.
“As we assess the quality of our corporate credit portfolios today, we believe that we are entering this period of uncertainty from a position of strength. The initial assessment of our portfolios reveals a limited direct exposure to changes in tariff rates.
“As a firm, we are more focused on domestic, middle market, service-oriented businesses that tend to have less exposure to international markets and global supply chains. While we will remain actively engaged with our portfolio companies and are carefully monitoring any primary or second order impacts from tariffs, we are optimistic about our ability to navigate any issues that arise in the portfolio.”
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