Century City heavyweight Ares Management is putting a firm cap on cash heading for the exits, telling shareholders it will buy back only a fraction of the stock they tried to unload in its marquee private-credit fund.
The Ares Strategic Income Fund, a semi-liquid private-credit vehicle pitched heavily to wealth-channel investors, received repurchase requests for roughly 11.6% of its outstanding shares this quarter. Instead of meeting that full rush, the fund will honor only 5%, which means many investors will see just partial payouts and will have to wait in line for future windows.
In a shareholder letter filed March 24, the $22.7 billion Ares Strategic Income Fund said investors had sought to tender about 11.6% of outstanding shares and confirmed it would repurchase only 5% this quarter, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. The fund added that most of the requests came from a "limited number of family offices and smaller institutions" that together account for less than 1% of its more than 20,000 investors.
Regulatory filings for ASIF show the fund approved repurchase requests totaling about 5.6% of shares in its previous quarterly tender. In the same materials, the fund told shareholders it "maintains significant liquidity," including roughly $5 billion of undrawn capacity across committed facilities, and that none of its loans were on non-accrual, according to its SEC filing.
Rivals Have Done The Same
Ares is not alone in slamming the gate on an investor rush. Across the private-credit market, other giants have taken similar steps. Apollo Global capped withdrawals at 5% after investors tried to redeem roughly 11.2% of its Apollo Debt Solutions vehicle, according to Reuters.
Managers say these caps are built-in protections designed to prevent fire sales in markets where loans do not trade easily. Still, the headlines have clearly spooked at least some wealth-management clients and have put pressure on publicly traded alternative-asset managers.
What This Means For Investors
None of this should be a true surprise to investors who read the fine print. ASIF's prospectus spells out that its quarterly repurchase program typically caps buybacks at 5% of outstanding shares and that a 2% early-repurchase deduction applies to shares held for less than a year, according to the fund's regulatory materials.
In practice, that legalese translates into a waiting game. Many investors will get only a pro-rata slice of what they asked to redeem in the current tender offer. The rest of their requests will roll forward, and they will need to resubmit in future quarters if they still want out.
Ares' Defense
In its shareholder letter, the fund framed the move as a responsible safeguard rather than a distress signal. The decision was "aligned with what we believe are the best interests of the fund and all of our stakeholders," the firm said, as reported by the Los Angeles Business Journal. Management also stressed that the spike in redemption activity was "not indicative of any underperformance or stress within the ASIF portfolio."
A Local Manager With Global Scale
ASIF is one of several perpetual-capital vehicles run by Ares, a Century City-based manager that reported nearly $623 billion in assets under management across its platform at year-end 2025, according to its full-year results, cited by Morningstar.
That kind of scale gives Ares room to meet at least some redemptions while trying to protect remaining investors from forced selling. It also means every move the firm makes on liquidity is closely watched by markets and regulators looking for any sign of broader stress in private credit.
Investors, advisors, and watchdogs will be tracking the next tender periods, any shifts in portfolio marks, and whether competing managers stick with their contractual caps or use fresh capital to fund exits. For anyone chasing the higher yields of private credit, the episode is a stark reminder that the tradeoff for those returns is simple: you get income, but not all the liquidity you might want when markets turn jittery.
