Ares Management is acquiring real estate manager Black Creek Group, which would increase Ares' real estate assets under management to about $29 billion, Ares announced Thursday.
Black Creek had roughly $11.6 billion as of March 31 in core and core-plus real estate assets in two non-traded real estate investment trusts and various institutional funds, according to a joint news release. Some $6.4 billion of Black Creek's total AUM is institutional, an Ares spokesman said in an email.
The acquisition of Black Creek will give Ares additional perpetual capital in the form of the $5.1 billion in non-traded REITs, as well as a retail distribution platform.
"We are excited to join the Ares team, and we believe this is a highly complementary combination of people, investment products and resources," said Raj Dhanda, CEO at Black Creek, in the news release.
The deal is expected to close early in the third quarter of 2021. Some deal terms including cash to be paid by Ares are not being disclosed. Once the deal closes, Ares will give Black Creek about 3,496,353 shares of operating group units of one of its operating companies, Ares Holdings, in addition to cash, an SEC filing said. The operating group units are expected to represent about 1% of Ares’ outstanding total equity as of May 19.
Ares has $207.2 billion in total AUM.
