Ares Management Corporation is acquiring Landmark Partners in a deal that values the private-markets ‘secondaries’ specialist at $1.08bn (€921m).
The $197bn alternative investments firm said it had entered into a definitive agreement with BrightSphere Investment Group and Landmark Investment Holdings to acquire 100% of the business with $787m in cash.
Landmark has 150 employees across six global offices and manages $18.7bn of assets through secondary-market investments in private equity, real estate and infrastructure funds.
The agreement comes a month after Ares bought a controlling stake in the private-markets arm of AMP Capital. It also follows BentallGreenOak’s acquisition of Metropolitan Real Estate Equity, another company that specialises in real estate secondaries and recapitalisations.
Michael Arougheti, CEO and president of Ares said Landmark was a “pioneer in developing the asset class of private-market secondaries”.
He added: “We believe secondary investments are only increasing in their appeal to a growing group of investors and we are excited to include these strategies in our comprehensive alternatives offering.”
Timothy Haviland, president and managing partner of Landmark Partners, said: “As alternative assets continue to gain share, we believe growth in the secondaries market should also continue to accelerate.”
According to a recent report by Landmark, real estate secondaries had a record year in 2020.
Ares said there would be little overlap between investor bases of the two organisations. The merged company is set to have more than 1,600 institutional investors, of which less than 5% were already invested with both Ares and Landmark.
The merger will mean Ares will have five distinct parts of the business: credit, private equity, real estate, “strategic initiatives” and secondaries.
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