Key Takeaways for Ares Management Stock as of September 2026
- AI Panic Reset: Ares Management stock is down 22% since January after a 32% single-quarter plunge through March, when investors priced in AI disruption risk to its software-exposed direct lending book.
- Street Split: Ares Management stock carries 7 buy ratings, 4 outperforms and 7 holds, and the $148 mean target from 18 analysts sits 13% above the current $131 share price.
- Model Upside: TIKR’s mid-case model targets $266 for Ares Management stock, implying 104% total return.
- Lingering Friction: Even after a record $36B fundraising quarter, Ares scaled back a €1B private credit vehicle in August and absorbed a 14% NAV redemption request in its nontraded BDC during Q2, signs the panic’s aftershocks haven’t fully cleared.
See how Ares Management’s ratings and targets moved through the AI scare on TIKR for free →
Why Ares Management Stock Is Still Down 22% Since January
Ares Management (ARES) stock has fallen 22% since the start of the year, with almost all of that drop packed into ten weeks. The stock fell 32% during the first quarter, as investors decided its software-borrower exposure in direct lending made it a prime AI disruption target.
Management had been making the opposite case before the panic peaked. On the company’s fourth-quarter call on February 5, CEO Michael Arougheti told analysts that software made up about 12% of the direct lending book and only a “very small” slice carried high AI disruption risk. The market didn’t wait to find out if he was right: the wider leveraged loan market logged its worst month since September 2022 that same quarter, and Ares Management stock cratered alongside it.
The rebuttal showed up in the numbers five months later. On the July 31 second-quarter call, Chief Financial Officer Jarrod Phillips walked through the credit book: “Across our direct lending portfolios, underlying credit fundamentals remain strong and stable with low loan to values and healthy interest coverage… We’re not seeing any signs of a turn in the credit cycle as evidenced by 9% year-over-year organic EBITDA growth from our portfolio companies.” Fee-related earnings grew 20% year over year to $491 million that quarter, and fee-paying assets rose 17% to $410 billion, not the profile of a business being eaten by software disruption.
Ares Management stock has climbed 20% off its March 31 close of $109, but at $131 it is still pricing in more damage than the credit book has actually taken.
Redemptions and a Scaled-Back Vehicle Keep Some Skepticism Alive
The AI scare has faded, but a second friction kept Ares Management stock from fully recovering into its August high. The company’s nearly $11 billion nontraded business development company (BDC) took in redemption requests worth 14% of net asset value in the second quarter, concentrated among non-U.S. family offices and small Asian institutions rather than its core U.S. base, where requests fell 35% sequentially to 2.5% of assets. Then on August 6, Ares confirmed it had scaled back a planned €1 billion private credit continuation vehicle to about €400 million after investors demanded a steeper loan discount than the firm would accept.
Neither event points to a credit problem. Both point to buyers still pricing private credit loans more conservatively than Ares is, and that gap looks like a more durable overhang on Ares Management stock than the AI narrative that grabbed headlines in the spring.
Analysts Kept Adding Buy Ratings on Ares Management Stock Through the Crash
Ares Management stock currently carries 7 buy ratings, 4 outperforms and 7 holds, with no sell or no-opinion ratings on the books. Separately, 18 analysts publish a price target on the stock, and their mean sits at $148, 13% above the September 10 close of $131.
That positioning looks stubborn against the chart. At the end of 2025, the mean target stood at $189 against a $162 close, a 17% premium. When the stock cratered to $109 in the first quarter, the mean target fell only to $164, a gap of 50%, the widest of the year. Buy ratings rose over that stretch, climbing from 5 to 7 as the stock collapsed. Since then, the price has recovered faster than the target has been cut: the mean has drifted down to $148 while the stock climbed back to $131, narrowing the gap to 13% today. Coverage widened too, from 16 analysts at year-end 2025 to 18 now.
None of that reads like capitulation. Analysts leaned into the stock precisely when the AI panic was at its worst, and the gap has closed mostly because the price caught up to where targets already sat, not because targets chased the price down.
TIKR Values Ares Management Stock at $266, Pricing In a Full Recovery
TIKR’s mid-case model values Ares Management at $266 by the end of 2030, implying a 104% total return from the current price of $131, or 18% annualized over the next 4.3 years.
That return profile reads more like a re-rating trade than a standard compounding case, since almost a quarter of the projected gain is the stock closing the distance to where it traded before the AI scare began.
The case for closing the rest of that gap rests on evidence already showing up in the numbers: fee-related earnings up 20% and fee-paying assets up 17% in the second quarter. The direct lending book behind those numbers grew organic EBITDA 9% year over year despite a full year of AI headlines, and the Street’s own analysts never fully priced in the disaster scenario to begin with. The model is betting the redemption queue and the vehicle-valuation friction clear before the panic gets another chance to reprice the stock.
Should You Invest in Ares Management Corporation?
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
