This is just about ACOF (PE division at Ares) — heard this from a buddy who used to be there, and it was wild.
1.Returns have been rough, and fundraising’s been worse: ACOF V (2017 vintage, their biggest fund at $7.85B) is sitting at a 5% IRR in latest Q1 2025 public earnings - check their public investor presentation posted on their website. They’ve barely had any exits in the past few years, which has made fundraising a nightmare. ACOF VII’s been in market for over 2 years and only raised $1.8B per a November 2024 SEC filing that is publicly online, which is much lower than their prior fund at $5.7B. Leadership’s trying to pull off some kind of hail mary to keep it alive.
2.Zero transparency: Nobody — not LPs, not employees, not even shareholders — really knows what’s going on with the PE business.
3.Threw juniors under the bus to save face: When it was clear Fund VII wasn’t going to make it, they laid off a bunch of junior team members with no warning while keeping the senior folks who were behind the bad deals. They spun it as “performance-related,” but it was pretty obviously about optics. Didn’t want to admit the fundraising flop.
4.Team’s been bailing for years: Over the last 3–4 years, there’s been massive turnover. Everyone saw the writing on the wall and wanted out before things got worse.
ACOF’s basically doing the slow-motion collapse thing — not too different from what’s happened at places like Carlyle, Onex, American Securities, Abry, etc. Just trying to cover up the damage and keep the story alive for as long as they can.
