Ares Management Corporation (ARES) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Ares Management Corporation (NYSE:ARES) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call April 28, 2023 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Carl Drake - Head, Public Markets, IR

Michael Arougheti - CEO

Jarrod Phillips - CFO

Bill Benjamin - Global Head, Real Estate

Conference Call Participants

Craig Siegenthaler - Bank of America

Adam Beatty - UBS

Alex Blostein - Goldman Sachs

Michael Cyprys - Morgan Stanley

Brian Mckenna - JMP Securities

Benjamin Budish - Barclays

Kenneth Lee - RBC Capital Markets

Mike Brown - KBW

Rufus Hone - BMO Capital

Carl Drake

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for our First Quarter Conference Call. I'm joined today by Michael Arougheti, our Chief Executive Officer; and Jarrod Phillips, our Chief Financial Officer. We also have a number of executives with us today, who will be available during the Q&A session.

Before we begin, I want to remind you that comments made during this call contain forward-looking statements and are subject to risks and uncertainties, including those identified in our Risk Factors in our SEC filings. Our actual results could differ materially, and we undertake no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements.

Please also note that past performance is not a guarantee of future results, and nothing on this call constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any Ares Fund.

During this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, which should not be considered in isolation from, or as a substitute for measures prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

Please refer to our first quarter earnings presentation available on the Investor Resources section of our website for reconciliations of the measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Note, we plan to file our Form 10-Q early next month.

This morning, we announced we declared our second quarter common dividend of $0.77 per share on the company's Class A and non-voting common stock, representing an increase of 26% of our dividend for the same quarter a year ago. The dividend will be paid on June 30th, 2023, to holders of record on June 16th.

Now, I'll turn the call over to Michael Arougheti, who will start with some quarterly financial and business highlights.

Michael Arougheti

Thanks Carl. Good morning everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Following a volatile 2022 in the equity and debt markets, transaction activity in the first quarter got off to a slow start and was uneven across various markets that we participate in.