Ares Management Corporation Announces Agreement to Acquire Black Creek Group

Leading Core / Core-Plus Real Estate Firm Will Expand Ares’ Real Estate Group with Complementary Capabilities and Vertically Integrated Platform in High Conviction Industrial Sector

Business Combination Will Add Significant Perpetual, Non-Traded REIT Capital and Retail Distribution Platform with Capacity to Scale Existing and New Products

Combined Real Estate Group Assets Under Management to Increase to Approximately $29 Billion

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Ares Management Corporation (“Ares”) (NYSE: ARES) announced today that a subsidiary of Ares has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Black Creek Group’s U.S. real estate investment advisory and distribution business (“Black Creek”), a leading real estate investment management firm.

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Founded in 1993, Black Creek had approximately $11.6 billion of assets under management, as of March 31, 2021, in core / core-plus real estate strategies across two non-traded Real Estate Investment Trusts (“REITs”) and various institutional fund vehicles. Black Creek’s senior management team has an average of 25 years of experience in sourcing, acquiring, operating and developing properties in the U.S. Supported by large institutional investors and an established retail investor base, Black Creek has a longstanding track record across major property types, including industrial, multifamily, office and retail. Black Creek’s vertically integrated platform brings significant local expertise with over 100 investment professionals operating across eight offices throughout the U.S.

With an experienced team focused on core / core-plus strategies, the transaction is expected to broaden the existing capabilities and product offerings of the Ares Real Estate Group. Additionally, the acquisition of Black Creek will expand the Ares real estate platform with vehicles that complement Ares’ existing real estate debt and U.S. and European value-add and opportunistic funds. Black Creek has operated in the high conviction industrial sector for more than 25 years, which is expected to increase the Ares Real Estate Group’s breadth in the sector and further drive operating, sourcing and informational advantages for its fund investors. Ares believes the approximately $2 trillion industrial real estate sector exhibits consistent fundamentals across diverse market cycles and is positioned to benefit from heightened institutional interest driven in part by secular tailwinds and the accelerated growth of e-commerce.

The acquisition will also transform Ares’ retail distribution capability and increase Ares’ perpetual, non-traded REIT capital by $5.1 billion with the addition of two separate non-traded REITs. As one of the leading retail fundraising platforms for non-traded REITs, Black Creek’s over 80-person broker dealer team distributes and markets to more than 70 relationships that have access to over 100,000 financial advisors. Over time, it is expected that through this combination there will be attractive growth prospects for Black Creek’s non-traded REITs and enhanced opportunities to accelerate retail distribution for Ares’ various alternative asset products to broker dealers through Black Creek’s distribution platform.

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