Kirkland & Ellis advised Ares Management Corporation (NYSE: ARES) on the Ares Pathfinder Fund II, L.P. and Ares Pathfinder Fund II (Offshore), L.P. The final closing of the fund was announced October 30, 2023 and included $6.6 billion in commitments, which exceeded the initial $5 billion target after the fund was oversubscribed. The fund is approximately 80 percent larger than the predecessor fund. The Ares Alternative Credit team will use the Pathfinder II Fund to pursue a differentiated strategy of providing scaled solutions tailored to owners of large, diversified portfolios of assets that seek to generate resilient, contractual cash flows across market cycles. Ares is one of the largest investors in asset-based credit and manages approximately $27.8 billion in assets under management, including the Pathfinder family of funds.

The Kirkland team was led by investment funds partners Stephanie Berdik and Shreyas Jhaveri and included investment funds partner Scott Lenahan and associates John Jameson, Iris Ryou, Michael Sitcawich and Maggie Spinard; tax partners Meredith Levy and Miles Johnson and associate Weiwei Chen; investment funds ERISA partner Sabrina Glaser and associate Theodore Brown; and government, regulatory & internal investigations partner Nick Niles.