Is Ares a MF

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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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 

 
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Nobody considers them a private equity megafund unless your a college kid

 

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.

 

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