Century City-based alternative asset manager Ares Management Corp. has completed its purchase of Black Creek Group’s U.S. real estate investment advisory and distribution business.
The addition of Denver-based Black Creek’s real estate assets gives Ares a combined business with roughly $29 billion in real estate assets under management,
“The integration with Black Creek marks a pivotal expansion of our group’s capabilities and products and meaningfully broadens our footprint in the U.S.,” said Bill Benjamin, partner and head of the Ares Real Estate Group.
Key executives of the Black Creek leadership team will remain in place and become part of the Ares Real Estate Group, led by Benjamin.
The transaction follows a series of expansion efforts by Ares, including a failed attempt to take over 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, instead announcing that it would spin off the unit and rebrand it. In October, AMP disclosed that it had been approached by Ares with an offer to buy the entire company.
Since the end of 2020, Ares has grown its assets under management by 21.3% and beefed up its workforce 38% to 2,000 employees.
Ares had roughly $197 billion of assets under management with more than 1,450 employees as of Dec. 31.
In early June, Ares completed its acquisition of Landmark Partners from Boston-based BrightSphere Investment Group Inc. in a $1.1 billion deal.
The deal boosted 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 ownership stake in the alternative asset management industry.
The latest deal to buy Black Group’s real estate business increases Ares’ assets under management to $239 billion as of March 31 and adds another 300 employees.
Black Creek runs eight offices across the United States and had $11.6. billion of assets under management.
Ares plans to release its second-quarter financial report on July 29.
