Ares Management ( ARES ) raised roughly $30 billion in new capital in the first quarter, a company record that signals big investors are still allocating to private credit despite months of skeptical commentary about the space.

Ares credit business accounted for the largest share of the quarter’s haul, raising $20.4 billion, while its real assets platform brought in $6.2 billion.

"We are on track for another record year of fundraising as we continue to see broad-based investor demand across our platform. We also continue to see strong fundamental performance across our investment portfolios despite the volatile market environment," said CEO Michael Arougheti in a press release.

Ares finished the quarter with $158.1 billion of uninvested capital, up 11% from the prior year. The firm said it deployed $32.3 billion during the period across U.S. and European direct lending, real estate, and alternative credit strategies.

The asset managers’ fee-related earnings during the quarter rose 26% to $464.4 million. After-tax realized income of $452.4 million, or $1.24 per share, for the three months ending March 31. Compare that to last year’s $381.4 million income, or $1.09 per share.

Ares is also deepening its focus on institutional investors, those who provide long-term capital and can weather market downturns. The firm reported that its number of direct institutional clients rose by roughly 50% between 2022 and 2025. 

The firm's assets under management (AUM) increased 18% from a year earlier to $644.3 billion. The longer-term goal is to top $750 billion by 2028.

In February, Ares completed its acquisition of London-based systematic fixed-income manager BlueCove Limited, which it said added $5.5 billion to its AUM. 

The private credit sector has been under fire in recent weeks. Investors remained concerned about default risk, high interest rates, and the disruption AI may cause in the software sector. As a result, many firms have seen an increase in redemption requests and poor stock performance. Despite some of the chaos in the market, some firms have also performed well off of the turbulence.

Blackstone's private credit platform outperformed despite adverse macroeconomic conditions. During the first quarter, the firm's investment-grade private credit platform grew 23% year over year. That’s approximately $130 billion.

So far, it has generated a 9.4% annual net return.