Ares Management

Ares Management, founded in 1997 and publicly traded, operates as a global alternative investment manager with over two decades of performance across credit, real estate, private equity, and infrastructure. For family offices seeking institutional-quality access to private markets, Ares offers a dedicated channel through Ares Wealth Management Solutions (AWMS), a division specifically structured to serve individual investors, financial advisors, and private wealth clients through private and non-listed fund vehicles.

The firm’s scale is notable: it runs primary and secondary investment strategies across four distinct asset classes, with fundraising activity in the billions across each. Recent capital raises include $9.8 billion for an opportunistic credit strategy, $5.4 billion for U.S. And Europe value-add real estate, and a $1.7 billion private credit continuation vehicle. The breadth of the platform means family offices can access multiple alternative asset classes through a single manager relationship, rather than building separate manager relationships for credit, real estate, and infrastructure separately.

Key product and service attributes relevant to private wealth clients include:

• Private and non-listed fund vehicles distributed through AWMS
• Strategies spanning direct lending, opportunistic credit, CLOs, real estate equity and debt, private equity, infrastructure debt, and secondaries
• Public vehicles including BDCs and closed-end funds for more liquid exposure
• Dedicated wealth management contact line and email separate from institutional channels
• Secondary market capabilities across private equity, real estate, and infrastructure

The trade-off a family office accepts is that Ares is fundamentally an asset manager, not an advisory or reporting partner. Pricing is not publicly disclosed and minimum investment thresholds are not publicly disclosed. Smaller family offices may find access constrained by institutional minimums typical of this caliber of manager.