Los Angeles investment management firm Ares Management LLC announced Tuesday that it has acquired a 50 percent stake in AmeriQual, an Evansville, Ind.-based provider of ready-to-eat meals used by military personnel.

Ares did not disclose terms of the investment. Jefferies Quarterdeck, the Los Angeles-based division of New York-based Jeffereries & Company, served as AmeriQual’s financial advisor for the deal.

“AmerQual is a leader in its industry and poised to leverage its capabilities for continued growth in both its military and commercial businesses,” Bennett Rosenthal, a senior partner at Ares Management, said in a statement.

Founded in 1987, AmeriQual generated $148 million in sales last year, according to the statement. From 1998 to 2003, data collected by the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington, D.C.-based investigative research organization, shows that AmeriQual was awarded over $440 million in defense contracts.

AmeriQual provides rations to U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, among other countries. In addition to the Department of Defense, the company has manufactured ready-to-eat food for commercial food companies such as Gerber Products Co. and Kraft Foods.

Ares, founded in 1997, is a privately held investment firm with about $6.1 billion of committed capital under management. In 2004, Ares acquired Maidenform Inc., a Bayonne, N.J.-based manufacturer and marketer of women’s intimate apparel.

Also last year, Ares invested $30 million in Los Angeles-based House of Blues Entertainment Inc. as part of a $110 million recapitalization effort.