Michael Arougheti

Michael Arougheti
Born	Michael J. Arougheti
Nationality	American
Occupation	Business executive, investor
Title	Chief Executive Officer and Director, Ares Management Corporation
Known for	Co-Founder and CEO of Ares Management Corporation

Michael J. Arougheti is an American business executive and investor who serves as the Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Director of Ares Management Corporation, one of the largest global alternative investment management firms. Under his leadership, Ares Management has grown into a firm with assets under management exceeding $600 billion, with a particular emphasis on private credit, a sector in which the firm has established a commanding presence. Arougheti has been a central figure in the expansion of the alternative investment industry, steering Ares through periods of significant growth in private credit, real estate, private equity, and infrastructure investing. His approach to firm management has emphasized organic growth and an independent distribution strategy, distinguishing Ares from many of its competitors in the asset management space. Beyond his corporate role, Arougheti has also invested in professional sports, acquiring a stake in the Baltimore Orioles of Major League Baseball in early 2024 alongside two colleagues from Ares Management.

Career

Ares Management Corporation

Michael Arougheti co-founded Ares Management Corporation, which has grown into one of the largest alternative investment managers in the world. He has served as the firm's Chief Executive Officer and as a member of its Board of Directors, playing a central role in defining the firm's strategic direction and investment philosophy.

Under Arougheti's leadership, Ares Management has experienced substantial growth. By early 2026, the firm's total assets under management had crossed the $600 billion mark, driven by strong fundraising momentum across its various investment platforms. The firm has pursued an ambitious growth trajectory, with reporting in mid-2025 indicating that Ares was targeting $750 billion in assets under management, a figure that would further solidify its position among the largest alternative asset managers globally.

Ares Management operates across several major investment categories, including credit, private equity, real estate, and infrastructure. However, the firm has become particularly prominent in the private credit market, where it has established itself as one of the leading managers. The firm's credit secondaries business has grown significantly, with its inaugural credit secondaries closed-end fund reaching $4 billion, and the broader credit secondaries programme totalling $7.1 billion. This represented the firm's largest fundraise of its kind and underscored Ares's position in the growing credit secondaries market.

Strategic Direction and Leadership Philosophy

Arougheti has articulated a distinctive strategic vision for Ares Management, one that in several respects diverges from the approaches taken by competing firms in the alternative investment space. A notable element of this strategy has been the firm's decision to resist partnering with traditional money managers to reach everyday investors, including through the 401(k) retirement savings market. In a December 2025 interview, Arougheti explained the firm's rationale for maintaining an independent distribution approach rather than forming alliances with other asset managers to access retail investors. This independent posture has been a distinguishing feature of Ares's growth strategy relative to peers who have pursued partnerships and joint ventures with traditional financial institutions.

At the same time, Ares has actively sought to capitalize on what Arougheti has described as a "retail revolution" in alternative assets. In an October 2025 interview with CNBC, Arougheti stated that the firm was seeing better-than-expected momentum among individual, wealthy investors seeking exposure to alternative asset classes. This shift represented a broadening of the firm's investor base beyond the institutional investors—such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and endowments—that have traditionally constituted the core clientele of alternative asset managers.

The firm's leadership strategy has been characterized by an emphasis on collaboration and an unconventional internal management approach. A Fortune profile published in July 2025 described the leadership strategy behind Ares's private credit dominance as "unconventional," noting the firm's distinctive organizational culture as a factor in its competitive positioning.

Arougheti has also identified private equity as a significant growth area for the firm. In a December 2025 interview with the Financial Times, he indicated that Ares had "a lot of financial capacity to buy" and was eyeing expansion in private equity as the firm's next major target. This signaled a potential strategic shift toward greater emphasis on equity investing alongside the firm's established credit platform.

Views on Private Credit and Market Conditions

As the head of one of the largest private credit managers globally, Arougheti has been a frequent commentator on conditions and trends in the private credit market. He has consistently offered a confident assessment of the sector's health and growth prospects, even in the face of broader market concerns.

In February 2026, Arougheti publicly downplayed the idea of trouble in the private credit market, calling fears about the sector "odd" and "frustrating." In remarks covered by Bloomberg, he addressed concerns that had been raised by various market observers about potential risks in the rapidly growing private credit industry, including worries about credit quality, liquidity, and the potential for losses in a downturn. Arougheti characterized such concerns as misguided, suggesting that the private credit market remained fundamentally sound.

In the same set of remarks, Arougheti also addressed concerns about the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the investment landscape. He "shrugged off" worries that AI could disrupt software businesses and negatively impact Ares's earnings growth, according to Reuters reporting. Given that software companies represent a significant portion of the portfolio companies financed through private credit, concerns had been raised in some quarters about whether AI-driven disruption could undermine the value of these investments. Arougheti dismissed these fears, maintaining confidence in the firm's positioning and the resilience of its portfolio.

Arougheti's public commentary on these issues reflected a broader pattern of the CEO using media appearances and investor communications to push back against what he viewed as exaggerated concerns about the alternative investment industry. His remarks were widely covered in financial media and contributed to ongoing debates about the trajectory of private credit and its role in the global financial system.

Credit Secondaries

A specific area of growth under Arougheti's leadership has been Ares's credit secondaries business. The firm's inaugural credit secondaries closed-end fund reached $4 billion in commitments, while the total programme amounted to $7.1 billion. This fundraise represented the largest of its kind for Ares and signaled the firm's ambitions in the still-developing credit secondaries market, which involves the buying and selling of existing positions in private credit funds and portfolios. Arougheti described Ares as "well positioned" in this growing segment, indicating that the firm planned to continue expanding its presence in credit secondaries as the market matured.

Personal Life

Outside of his role at Ares Management, Arougheti has pursued interests in professional sports ownership. In early 2024, he purchased a stake in the Baltimore Orioles, a Major League Baseball franchise, alongside two colleagues from Ares Management. The investment placed Arougheti among a growing number of prominent finance executives who have acquired ownership interests in major professional sports teams.

Legacy

Michael Arougheti's career has been closely intertwined with the growth and development of the alternative investment industry, and in particular the rise of private credit as a major asset class. As co-founder and CEO of Ares Management, he has overseen the firm's expansion from its founding to a position as one of the largest alternative asset managers in the world, with assets under management surpassing $600 billion by early 2026.

Arougheti's leadership of Ares has coincided with—and contributed to—a period of rapid growth in private credit markets. Private credit, also known as direct lending, has evolved from a niche segment of the financial landscape into a multi-trillion-dollar market, and Ares's growth under Arougheti's direction has been emblematic of this broader transformation. The firm's emphasis on credit strategies, combined with its expansion into private equity, real estate, infrastructure, and credit secondaries, has positioned it as a diversified alternative investment platform.

His strategic decision to pursue an independent distribution model—eschewing partnerships with traditional financial firms in favor of building Ares's own channels to reach individual investors—has represented a distinctive approach within the industry. This strategy, combined with the firm's focus on the growing demand for alternative investments among wealthy individual investors, has shaped the firm's competitive positioning at a time when many alternative asset managers have been seeking ways to broaden their investor bases.

Arougheti's stated ambitions to expand Ares's private equity capabilities, as articulated in his December 2025 remarks to the Financial Times, suggest an ongoing evolution of the firm's strategy and a potential shift in its competitive positioning within the broader alternative asset management industry.