Ares Management has launched its first European Long-Term Investment Fund (ELTIF), expanding access to its European direct lending strategy to a wider array of individual investors.
The Ares European Strategic Income ELTIF Fund (AESIF ELTIF) is a semi-liquid perpetual direct lending fund that will be open to individuals in the European Economic Area.
Ares launched its European direct lending strategy in 2007 and now manages over $77bn (£57.3bn) in assets. The fund focuses on directly originated, senior secured floating rate loans to businesses in Western Europe.
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The alternative asset manager said that its new ELTIF is intended to widen individual participation in its European direct lending strategy through lower investment minimums relative to traditional alternative investment products.
Ares has not disclosed the investment threshold for its ELTIF, but similar products on the market have opted for a €10,000 minimum.
The ELTIF structure is designed to encourage individuals to invest in long-term, illiquid assets more easily. The rules were revamped last year – dubbed ELTIF 2.0 – to offer greater flexibility in fund structuring and encompass a wider range of assets.
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“Ares strongly believes in our ability to provide individual investors with attractive investment solutions as they seek to diversify their portfolios in response to volatility and uncertainty in the public markets,” said Andrea Fernandez, head of product management and investor relations for European credit, and Daniel Sinclair, partner in European direct lending. “As part of this commitment, AESIF ELTIF enables us to offer qualifying individuals the same high-quality, localized origination and strong portfolio management capabilities we offer our institutional investors.”
Alternative asset managers have been making inroads into the wealth market in recent years to diversify their funding sources and achieve their growth ambitions.
Ares’ wealth business accounts for around $44bn of assets under management (AUM), with Ares’ total AUM standing at $546bn.
Ares’ first solution within the channel in EMEA and APAC, Ares European Strategic Income Fund, raised over $630m in the first quarter of 2025 and stood at over $3bn in AUM after only 15 months.
“We are pleased to further expand access to our leading European direct lending capabilities for individual investors in Europe, underscoring the strong demand for income-producing asset classes such as private credit,” said Mark Serocold, partner and EMEA head of wealth management solutions. “The updated ELTIF regime is aligned to our mission of democratizing private markets investments, and we believe we will continue seeing a shift in allocations to the private markets as a wider pool of qualifying individual investors become eligible to participate.”
