Business Description

Overview Ares is a leading global alternative investment manager with $622.5 billion of assets under management and over 4,250 employees in over 55 o ffices in more than 25 countries . We offer our investors a range of investment strategies and seek to deliver attractive performance to an investor base that includes over 2,850 direct institutional relationships and a significant retail investor base across our publicly-traded funds, sub-advised accounts and perpetual wealth vehicles. Since our inception in 1997, we have adhered to a disciplined investment philosophy that focuses on delivering strong risk-adjusted investment returns through market cycles. Ares believes each of its distinct but complementary investment groups in Credit, Real Assets, Secondaries and Private Equity is a market leader based on assets under management and investment performance. We believe we create value for our stakeholders not only through our investment performance, but also by expanding our product offerings, enhancing our distribution channels, increasing our global presence, investing in our non-investment functions, securing strategic partnerships and completing strategic acquisitions and portfolio purchases. Our AUM has grown to $622.5 billion as of December 31, 2025 from $94.0 billion a decade earlier. A s shown in the chart below, over the past five and 10 years, our assets under management have achieved a compound annual growth rate (“CAGR”) of 26% and 21%, respectively ($ in billions): We have an established track record of delivering strong risk-adjusted returns through market cycles. We believe our consistent and strong performance in a broad range of alternative investments has been shaped by several distinguishing features of our platform: • Comprehensive Multi-Asset Class Expertise and Flexible Capital: Our proficiency at evaluating every level of the capital structure, from senior debt to common equity, across companies, structured assets, real estate projects, and infrastructure and energy assets enables us to effectively assess relative value. This proficiency is complemented by our flexibility in deploying capital in a range of structures and different market environments to maximize risk-adjusted returns. • Differentiated Market Intelligence: Our proprietary research on over 55 industries and insights from a broad, global investment portfolio enable us to more effectively diligence and structure our products and investments. 9 Table of Contents • Consistent Investment Approach: We believe our rigorous, credit-oriented investment approach across each of our investment groups is a key contributor to our strong investment performance and ability to expand our product offering. • Robust Sourcing Model: Our investment professionals’ local market presence and ability to effectively cross-source for other investment groups generates a robust pipeline of high-quality investment opportunities across our platform. • Talented and Committed Professionals: We attract, develop and retain highly accomplished professionals who not only demonstrate deep and broad investment and non-investment expertise but also have a strong sense of commitment to our firm. • Collaborative Culture: We share ideas, relationships and information, which enables our investment groups to more effectively source, evaluate and manage investments. We also leverage the OMG to help drive the efficiencies across the platforms and support our investment process. Integrated Investment Platform and Process We operate our firm as an integrated investment platform with a collaborative culture that emphasizes sharing of knowledge and expertise. We believe the exchange of information enhances our ability to analyze investments, deploy capital and improve the performance of our funds and portfolio companies. We have established deep and sophisticated independent research capabilities in over 55 industries and insights from investments in over 2,150 companies, over 1,900 alternative credit investments, over 1,300 properties, over 90 infrastructure assets and over 1,000 limited partnership interests in investment funds. Our investment process leverages the power of the Ares platform and an extensive network of professionals across our investment areas to identify and source attractive risk-adjusted return opportunities while emphasizing capital preservation.…