I have seen the firm grow really fast, but was curious if it's considered a MF in the same league as Apollo, Blackstone, Carlyle and the likes. Is it a prestigious firm to work for?
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No
Yes
Its not a Mega Fund but very prestigious. They are one of the top, if not the best, player in DL. Comp is top of the street, but they work very hard. If you are solely going for DL, they are better than the firms you mentioned above
what makes ares DL better than apollo credit? thought apollo was top dog in corporate loans
What is DL
Direct Lending
Yes
Largest direct lending business. 6th on private equity real estate ranking. Very prestigious. Most wouldn’t consider Ares a megafund. I work here and consider us just below, but in the same realm given comp and growth.
What is aso comp like?
I was $350k as a first year ($150k+$200k) but I think base is $165k now (not sure on bonus now, maybe it’s $10k more). So probably $375k.
Does your DL team consider corporate banking candidates?
Any additional color on comp at the Associate / VP level? The WSO database seems to have a wild range
See other comments for associate. Not sure on VP but senior associates are ~$190k base with $225k-$300k bonus (my estimate is around $250k-$275k bonus).
Do senior associates at Ares get carry on top of the $190k + $250-$275k?
Nobody considers them a private equity megafund unless your a college kid
Pretty poor culture at least on the traditional PE side
Is Ares a prestigious firm? Yes, absolutely.
Is Ares on par with Apollo, Blackstone, Carlyle in terms of size? Well, you be the judge. As one datapoint, this year’s PEI report has Ares at #30 with $27B of capital raised over the past 5 years. Compare that vs. Apollo ($23B), Blackstone ($126B), and Carlyle ($70B). So they raised more capital at least over the past 5 years vs. Apollo but less than BX and CG. (Now, you should note that 5-year fundraising volume is only one metric around firm size, and, more importantly, firm size really doesn’t necessarily indicate firm quality.)
Is Ares a MF? The term “mega fund” has so many different variants of definition that it has become an extremely subjective matter as to which firms are “mega funds” vs. not. In my mind, this is sort of like asking the question “Is x university a top university?” Well, again, what I can say is that Ares, at least on one metric of size, is #30 among 5,000+ private equity firms that are out there.
Wow — did not know Apollo raised so little. Why is that?
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