Ares Management (ARES)
Forward P/E is 19.55x against a peer median of 10.24x, a ratio of 1.91x — well above the fair range — with trailing P/E 56.81x and PEG 1.02. Latest-quarter revenue grew only 5.8% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), well below the cluster pace, so the growth exception does not apply: the premium is not paid for by delivered growth. Delivered demand check: the Asset management & custody banks group's median growth was 14.3% — demand rising, and Ares is growing more slowly than that pace.
What would change this label: Move to FAIRLY PRICED if the forward P/E compresses to about 11.78x or below (1.15x the peer median) at unchanged estimates, or if revenue growth rises above 14.3% year over year while the multiple falls. Move to BUBBLE if the forward P/E rises above about 20.48x (2.0x the peer median) while revenue growth stays below 14.3% year over year.
Ares, which manages private credit and other alternative investments, trades at about 20 times expected earnings — nearly twice what similar companies cost — while its sales grew only about 6%. Similar companies are growing faster and costing less. On these numbers the shares look overvalued.
Both lines start at 100 on 2020-09-01. Over the full window Ares Management returned +201.93% and the S&P 500 +118.28% (price returns; dividends not reinvested). Worst peak-to-trough fall for Ares Management: -51.3% (2025-01-31 to 2026-03-12). Source: Nasdaq official daily history.
What the label rests on
Forward P/E is 19.55x against a peer median of 10.24x, a ratio of 1.91x — well above the fair range — with trailing P/E 56.81x and PEG 1.02. Latest-quarter revenue grew only 5.8% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), well below the cluster pace, so the growth exception does not apply: the premium is not paid for by delivered growth. Delivered demand check: the Asset management & custody banks group's median growth was 14.3% — demand rising, and Ares is growing more slowly than that pace. The company’s forward P/E is 19.6× against a peer median of 10.2×. Its own history: UNVERIFIED — no sourced range available. Sector demand read: Delivered demand check: the Asset management & custody banks group's median latest-quarter revenue growth was 14.3% year over year (SEC filings) — demand rising. Latest-quarter sales growth was +5.8% versus a year earlier (SEC filings).
| Company | Price (Oct 28, 2026) | Forward P/E | Trailing P/E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ares Management (ARES) | $123.08 | 19.6× | 56.8× |
| BRK.B | $542.80 | 24.4× | 13.6× |
| IVZ | $28.45 | 9.1× | — |
| BEN | $31.31 | 10.2× | 21.3× |
| TROW | $103.68 | 10.2× | 10.4× |
| NTRS | $171.42 | 13.6× | 13.4× |
| Peer median | 10.2× |
Multiples: stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026. Peer set chosen by sector; the median is the middle value of the set. The label and its numbers were recorded in the programme’s label registry on Oct 28, 2026 and will be scored at 6 and 12 months.
Sales, profit and cash
This company does not report a gross-profit line in its SEC facts (normal for banks, payment networks and some health insurers), so profit is shown as net income instead — gross margin is marked UNVERIFIED-absent rather than estimated.
Free cash flow by quarter is not shown for Ares Management. Its SEC cash-flow facts do not separately tag spending on plant and equipment (normal for a bank), so a quarterly free-cash-flow figure cannot be built without estimating — and this programme does not estimate.
| Quarter | Sales | Gross margin | Net income | EPS (GAAP, diluted) | Free cash flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q/E Jun 2026 2026-06-30 | $1.4B | — | $151M | — | — |
| Q/E Mar 2026 2026-03-31 | $1.4B | — | $143M | — | — |
| Q/E Dec 2025 2025-12-31 | $1.5B | — | $54M | — | — |
| Q/E Sep 2025 2025-09-30 | $1.7B | — | $289M | — | — |
| Q/E Jun 2025 2025-06-30 | $1.4B | — | $137M | — | — |
| Q/E Mar 2025 2025-03-31 | $1.1B | — | $47M | — | — |
| Q/E Dec 2024 2024-12-31 | $1.3B | — | $177M | — | — |
| Q/E Sep 2024 2024-09-30 | $1.1B | — | $118M | — | — |
| Q/E Jun 2024 2024-06-30 | $789M | — | $95M | — | — |
| Q/E Mar 2024 2024-03-31 | $707M | — | $73M | — | — |
| Q/E Dec 2023 2023-12-31 | $1.1B | — | $174M | — | — |
| Q/E Sep 2023 2023-09-30 | $671M | — | $62M | — | — |
The last twelve reported quarters. Full 24-quarter history sits in the data pack behind this page. A dash means the figure is not tagged as a standalone quarter in the company’s SEC facts (the usual case is the fourth quarter, which many companies only report inside the full-year filing) — it is missing, not zero.
Earnings: getting better or worse?
Each box is one quarter’s earnings per share (EPS). Green means EPS was higher than the same quarter a year earlier; red means lower; a dash means the figure is not tagged in the filings.
Basis: GAAP diluted EPS from SEC company facts, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
Key facts
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Company (legal name in filings) | Ares Management Corp |
| Chief executive | Michael Arougheti (source: https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/ares-hauls-record-36-billion-private-credit-fundraising-momentum-2026-07-31/) |
| Sector | Financials — Asset Management & Custody Banks — manages alternative investments, mainly private credit, for clients |
| Share price (Oct 28, 2026) | $123.08 |
| Market value (market cap) | — — share price times shares outstanding of 0 (SEC filings; ) |
| Sales, last twelve months | $6.0B |
| Net income, last twelve months | $636M |
| Free cash flow, last twelve months | — |
| Latest reported quarter | Q/E Jun 2026 (of 24 quarters in the data pack) |
| Six-year price return vs S&P 500 | +201.93% vs +118.28% |
| Worst peak-to-trough fall | -51.3% (2025-01-31 to 2026-03-12) |
What we could not verify
- Gross profit / gross margin: not tagged as a standalone line in this company's EDGAR company facts (common for banks, payment networks and some healthcare payers) — shown as UNVERIFIED-absent; the page charts revenue and net income instead.
- TTM GAAP diluted EPS could not be summed from company facts because at least one of the last four quarters (typically Q4) has no standalone tagged EPS; trailing P/E is therefore taken from the labelled secondary source in valuation_label.md.
- Free cash flow is absent for one or more quarters: either the filer does not separately tag PP&E purchases in its EDGAR cash-flow facts (common for banks), or — for a successor registrant's newest quarter — the cash-flow lines are year-to-date without the prior-quarter rung needed to difference them. Affected quarters are null in the data, never estimated.
- Own-history P/E range not yet compiled for this company in the Phase 1 batch run; the label rests on peer-median, growth and PEG evidence.
- Guidance record (each quarter scored against the guidance the company gave the quarter before) is not yet compiled for this company — it is a Phase 2 layer. The earnings strip below therefore uses reported EPS versus a year earlier, which is fully sourced from filings.
The IT factor — the most exciting thing the market is overlooking — is not assessed on an X-Ray page. It belongs to the Deep Dive (Phase 2), where it gets the evidence standard it needs. Leadership-era scoring (the six years split by chief executive) is likewise a Phase 2 layer; this page names the current chief executive only, from a sourced profile.
Sources
- SEC EDGAR submissions — Filing index; company legal name.
https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0001176948.json - SEC EDGAR company facts — Quarterly financial spine: revenue, gross profit, net income, GAAP diluted EPS, operating cash flow, PP&E capex, buybacks, dividends, diluted shares.
https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0001176948.json - Nasdaq official daily history — Daily closes for the company; SPY (assetclass=etf) saved as raw/nasdaq_spy_raw.json over identical dates.
https://api.nasdaq.com/api/quote/ARES/historical?assetclass=stocks - Valuation multiples and peer figures — stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026; see valuation_label.md in the data pack.
Conventions: earliest-filed value per period, as first reported; cash-flow years-to-date differenced quarter by quarter; EPS never differenced; free cash flow = operating cash flow minus plant-and-equipment spending. This page is a dated snapshot — updates are new versions, never silent edits.