Ares Buys Black Creek’s Real Estate Business

Headquarters of Ares Management Corp. on Avenue of the Stars 2000 in Century City. Photo by Ringo Chiu.

Alternative asset manager Ares Management Corp. based in Century City, has completed the purchase of the US real estate investment advisory and distribution business of Black Creek Group.

The addition of Denver-based Black Creek real estate assets gives Ares a combined company with approximately $ 29 billion in real estate under management.

“The integration with Black Creek marks a significant expansion of our group’s capabilities and products and significantly expands our presence in the US,” said Bill Benjamin, Partner and Head of the Ares Real Estate Group.

Key executives on the Black Creek executive team will remain in office and will become part of the Ares Real Estate Group, led by Benjamin.

The transaction follows a number of expansion efforts by Ares, including a failed attempt to sell AMP Ltd.’s private markets business. and the successful acquisition of secondary market specialist Landmark Partners.

In April, Australian wealth manager AMP ended talks to sell its private markets business to Ares and instead announced that it would spin off and rename the unit. In October, AMP announced that Ares had approached them with an offer to buy the entire company.

Since late 2020, Ares has grown assets under management by 21.3% and its workforce by 38% to 2,000 employees.

Ares had approximately $ 197 billion in assets under management as of December 31 with more than 1,450 employees.

In early June, Ares completed the acquisition of Landmark Partners from Boston-based BrightSphere Investment Group Inc. in a $ 1.1 billion deal.

The transaction increased Ares’ assets under management by 9.4% to $ 215.7 billion and total employees by 10% to 1,600.

Landmark is one of the largest investors in secondary private equity funds with an interest in the alternative wealth management industry.

The latest transaction to purchase Black Group’s real estate business brings Ares’ assets under management to $ 239 billion as of March 31, and hires an additional 300 people.

Black Creek operates eight offices in the United States and was $ 11.6. Billions of assets under management.

Ares plans to release its financial report for the second quarter on July 29th.

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