Ares Management Corporation

As of December 2025, 93% of Ares' management fees derived from perpetual capital or long-dated funds with multi-year locked-in structures. Fee-paying AUM grew consistently across FY2021-FY2025 including through the 2020 fundraising slowdown, providing exceptional forward visibility into recurring management fee revenue.

The Credit Group accounted for $406.9B of $622.5B total AUM at December 2025, with Real Assets ($139.1B), Secondaries ($42.1B), and Private Equity ($25.3B) as secondary contributors. The asset class spread is meaningful, but credit concentration means a broad credit market dislocation would simultaneously affect the dominant share of platform AUM.

Ares operates across approximately 30 offices in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, but the Credit Group comprising roughly 65% of total AUM is predominantly US-originated. International exposure contributes meaningfully in real assets and secondaries but does not yet balance the home-market concentration.

Ares operates an asset-light management model where incremental AUM accrues at near-zero marginal cost. FRE margin has held in the 40-42% range across FY2023-Q1 2026, with additional AUM growth flowing largely to the fee revenue line, demonstrating structural operating leverage inherent to a locked-in management fee business.

Management fees are drawn from multi-year contractual commitments by institutional LPs including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and insurance companies, conferring mission-critical status within their capital allocation frameworks. At FY2025, 93% of management fees came from perpetual or long-dated structures rather than transactional or discretionary sources.