Ares Management Corporation (NYSE: ARES) (“Ares”), a leading global alternative investment manager, announced today the launch of its first European Long-Term Investment Fund (“ELTIF”) vehicle, the Ares European Strategic Income ELTIF Fund (“AESIF ELTIF”), a semi-liquid perpetual direct lending fund that will provide individual investors in the European Economic Area with expanded access to Ares’ leading European Direct Lending strategy.
AESIF ELTIF is the latest offering through the wealth channel and its first under the updated ELTIF regime. Designed to deliver a diversified portfolio largely comprising directly originated, senior secured floating rate loans to businesses in Western Europe, AESIF ELTIF seeks to provide a durable income solution with downside protection and yield stability. AESIF ELTIF is intended to widen individual investor participation in Ares’ European Direct Lending strategy through lower investment minimums relative to traditional alternative investment products.
Ares launched its European Direct Lending strategy in 2007, gaining a first mover advantage, and has established itself as a market leader. The strategy comprises approximately 95 investment professionals operating across seven offices in Europe and managed over $77 billion in assets, as of March 31, 2025. Since its inception, the European Direct Lending business has completed over 390 investments totaling more than €73 billion.
“Ares strongly believes in our ability to provide individual investors with attractive investment solutions as they seek to diversify their portfolios in response to volatility and uncertainty in the public markets,” said Andrea Fernandez, Head of Product Management and Investor Relations for European Credit, and Daniel Sinclair, Partner in European Direct Lending. “As part of this commitment, AESIF ELTIF enables us to offer qualifying individuals the same high-quality, localized origination and strong portfolio management capabilities we offer our institutional investors.”
“We are pleased to further expand access to our leading European direct lending capabilities for individual investors in Europe, underscoring the strong demand for income-producing asset classes such as private credit,” said Mark Serocold, Partner and EMEA Head of Wealth Management Solutions. “The updated ELTIF regime is aligned to our mission of democratizing private markets investments, and we believe we will continue seeing a shift in allocations to the private markets as a wider pool of qualifying individual investors become eligible to participate.”
Since the launch of the wealth channel in 2021, Ares has remained focused on scaling its wealth platform to deliver private markets access and education to financial advisors and their clients. With a growing team of approximately 150 professionals located in offices throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia, Ares’ wealth channel represents one of the most resourced wealth distribution and client service platforms in the alternatives industry today.
