Apollo Management - Affiliated Businesses - Ares Management

Ares Management

Ares Management, founded in 1997, was initially established to manage a $1.2 billion market value collateralized debt obligation vehicle. Ares would grow to manage a family of collateralized loan obligation (CLO) vehicles that would invest in capital markets-based securities including senior bank loans and high-yield and mezzanine debt. Ares was founded by Antony Ressler and John H. Kissick, both partners at Apollo as well as Bennett Rosenthal, who joined the group from the global leveraged finance group at Merrill Lynch.

Ares I and II which were raised were structured as market value CLOs. Ares III though Ares X were structured as cash flow CLOs. In 2002, Ares completed a spinout from Apollo management. Although technically, the founders of Ares had completed a spinout with the formation of the firm in 1997, they had maintained a close relationship with Apollo over its first five years and operated as the West Coast affiliate of Apollo. Shortly thereafter, Ares completed fundraising for Ares Corporate Opportunities Fund, a special situations investment fund with $750 million of capital under management.

In 2004, Ares debuted a publicly traded business development company, Ares Capital Corporation (NASDAQ:ARCC). In 2006, Ares raised a $2.1 billion successor special situations fund (Ares Corporate Opportunities Fund II).