Ares Raises Record $30 Billion Despite Private Credit Valuation Slump

Global alternative investment manager Ares Management raised $30 billion in the first quarter, a figure that was up more than 45% year over year and marked a first-quarter record for the company.

“We are on track for another record year of fundraising as we continue to see broad-based investor demand across our platform,” Ares CEO Michael Arougheti said in a Friday (May 1) press release. “We also continue to see strong fundamental performance across our investment portfolios despite the volatile market environment.”

Ares offers investment solutions across the credit, real estate, private equity and infrastructure asset classes, according to the release. As of March 31, it had $644 billion of assets under management.

“Supported by our expanding global platform, a record investment pipeline and nearly $160 billion of available capital, we are well positioned to invest our capital opportunistically and meet our financial objectives for the year,” Ares Chief Financial Officer Jarrod Phillips said in the release.

Reuters reported Friday that Ares is one of the biggest names in private credit and that the company’s announcement signaled that investor appetite for the asset class remains strong at a time when the private credit sector has seen months of negative headlines.

The report said that the number of direct institutional clients in Ares’ investor base leapt by about 50% between 2022 and 2025 and that this category of investors tends to be more predictable than retail ones during volatile periods.

Bloomberg reported Friday that as of Thursday (April 30), Ares’ shares had dropped 27% this year amid greater scrutiny of private credit valuations due to investor concerns over the sector’s lending standards and its exposure to the software sector.

It was reported Thursday (April 28) that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said that there is a possibility of a worse-than-anticipated credit market downturn and that the possibility is even greater in the private credit space, where the sheer number of companies means not all of them will do well if the market falls.

On April 15, it was reported that the Treasury Department has been holding one-on-one meetings with private credit leaders for months and began asking for written responses to its requests for data. Through these efforts, Treasury is seeking information about private credit firms’ business models and their ties to the regulated financial system.