Ares Management has elevated two senior partners, Kipp deVeer and Blair Jacobson, to the newly created roles of Co-Presidents, as the firm aims to nearly double its assets under management over the next four years, according to a report by the Financial Times.
The move is part of Chief Executive Michael Arougheti’s strategy to expand the leadership team and position the firm for long-term growth.
The promotions will see deVeer and Jacobson step back from their day-to-day oversight of Ares’s significant credit investment operations.
The report cites Arougheti as describing the appointments as critical to achieving the firm’s ambitious target of managing $750bn in assets by the end of 2028 — a leap of over 75% from its size in mid-2022.
To meet its objectives, Ares has leaned heavily on acquisitions, including its recent $5.2bn deal to acquire the international arm of GLP Capital Partners, a real estate investment manager. This acquisition places Ares in direct competition with industry heavyweights like Blackstone, KKR, and Brookfield.
Arougheti, who has served as Ares’s CEO since 2009, emphasised that the leadership changes are not part of his own succession plan, stating: “I’m not going anywhere.” Instead, the firm is focused on creating opportunities for leadership growth at earlier stages in employees’ careers.
“A lot of firms that get succession wrong wait too long,” Arougheti added. “You lose energy deeper down in the organisation.”
DeVeer, who joined Ares in 2004, has been instrumental in the firm’s private credit strategy and serves as CEO of Ares Capital Corporation, its flagship publicly traded credit investment vehicle managing $26bn in private loans. Jacobson, who joined Ares in 2012 after working at Citigroup’s proprietary investment division, leads its European credit business.
