CEO Michael Arougheti joins Bloomberg’s Dani Burger on Open Interest from Forbes Iconoclast conference. Throughout the conversation, they touch on private credit redemptions and their impact on the market, the continued investment opportunity in sports and how Ares evaluates risk across asset classes.
Source: Bloomberg
Host: Dani Burger
Date: June 3, 2026
What Michael Arougheti said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Michael Arougheti, CEO of Ares Management, discussed the state of private credit and private equity markets, emphasizing that recent redemption concerns in partially liquid funds are not indicative of underlying stress. He noted that only 10-15% of the private credit asset base sits in these funds, and underlying performance is delivering expected outcomes. Arougheti argued that private equity is not broken but transitioning, with roughly 30,000 companies needing to unclog capital structures from a lower-rate era. He highlighted the use of secondary solutions and refinancings to address this. On AI data centers, he stated the CapEx cycle is driven by equity from high-grade hyperscale counterparties, with leverage at the asset level, and sees no over-leverage. He also discussed Ares' sports platform, saying personal ownership helps make sounder investments by applying best practices to transform assets.
Key takeaways
Private credit redemption concerns are about investor psychology, not stress; only 10-15% of the asset base is in partially liquid funds.
Private equity is not broken but transitioning, with ~30,000 companies needing to unclog capital structures from a lower-rate era.
AI data center CapEx is driven by equity from high-grade hyperscale counterparties, with no current over-leverage.
Ares is using secondary solutions and refinancings to address the disconnect between old and new rate environments.
Personal sports ownership helps Ares make sounder investments by applying best practices to transform assets.
Numbers and commitments
Figure
What it refers to
Type
At
10 to 15%
Share of private credit asset base in partially liquid funds
It's only June and it probably feels like a decade for you.
And I know things have quieted down on private credit, but you know, you still get glimmers of it or glimpses of it. Um, you know, two funds specifically called out for redemptions, putting gates. I mean, do you — in your mind — have things quieted down or is there still stress that needs to be worked through?
I don't think it's stress. I think there's education that needs to get worked through, and I think with each quarter of redemption, people are going to begin to differentiate between people asking for redemption in a partially liquid fund versus underlying performance and fears of stress in the private credit market. So, what's so dissonant about this conversation is, A, the corner of the private credit world that sits in these illiquid funds is tiny. It's about 10 to 15% of the entire private credit asset base sits in these funds. So, to just be talking about this disconnected from the broader institutional market is probably a missed opportunity, but when you look at the underlying performance, the underlying performance is delivering exactly the investment outcome that these investors signed up for. So, I think it's more of a conversation about investor psychology and behavior within these structures as an indictment on private credit. And I do think it calmed down when we had earnings and the market saw that folks like us were growing 25 to 30% year-on-year, that the institutional investor was seeing this as a huge opportunity to come into a market that was maybe seeing liquidity come out of it and returns were improving. So, I think it's just going to take a little bit of time for people to see the performance demonstrate that durability, and then the way people are perceiving this redemption fuel will likely change.
Right. I mean, it's a great irony of Ares every quarter raises some new record fundraising figure. So, point very well taken. The news this morning though, and I of course would never ask you to comment directly on a competitor of Partners Group, is interesting because it is an evergreen fund, because it does have equity in it. And there is a real conversation happening right now of: are marks honest? And is this a system that's really gummed up because marks aren't honest? Do you think that there is a private equity problem specifically that needs to be discussed?
I think there's a private equity valuation problem. Valuations have been coming down to reflect the current reality, and one of the again disconnects — the private equity deals that are getting done are getting done at multiples that are consistently with where people are holding their...
Arougheti, M. (2026, July 2). CEO Michael Arougheti at Forbes Iconoclast on Market Dynamics, Digital Infrastructure Opportunities [Interview transcript]. Ares Management. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1059032/
MLA
Michael Arougheti. "CEO Michael Arougheti at Forbes Iconoclast on Market Dynamics, Digital Infrastructure Opportunities." Ares Management, 2 Jul. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1059032/.
BibTeX
@misc{arougheti2026_1059032,
author = {Michael Arougheti},
title = {CEO Michael Arougheti at Forbes Iconoclast on Market Dynamics, Digital Infrastructure Opportunities},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Ares Management. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {jul},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1059032/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
