L.A. Firm Posts $3.2B For Fund IV

Ares Management LLC has raised more than $3.2 billion for its latest private equity fund, according to a regulatory filing.

The firm is seeking to gather a total of $4.7 billion for the fund, Ares Corporate Opportunities Fund IV LP. So far, 39 investors have committed to the fund (the filing states 69 investors, but a source close to the firm said that is a typo in the filing).

It’s unclear when Ares Management executives hope to wrap the effort, though the filing states that it does not expect to be raising the fund for more than a year. The firm is not using a placement agent.

Los Angeles-based Ares Management is a global asset manager managing approximately $47 billion across three businesses that employ some 480 staff: a private equity group, a private debt group and a capital markets group.

Ares Management’s private equity group, which includes the corporate opportunities funds, seeks control- or minority-stake investments in mid-market companies. The firm is particularly interested in business franchises with strong existing management, according to its Web site.

The private equity group manages approximately $6 billion of committed capital via its three previous corporate opportunities funds, raised in 2003, 2006 and 2008, respectively. The group has nine investment professionals.

The group’s recent deals include the sale in March of a stake in publicly traded WCA Waste Corp., a Houston-based waste collection and processing company, to Macquarie Infrastructure Partners in a deal valued at $526 million. Ares had invested $75 million in the company in 2006.

In December, the firm logged another exit, selling Kinetic Systems Inc., a provider of facility services to companies in the solar, biopharmaceutical and other industries, to Kinetics Holding GmbH for an undisclosed amount.

Ares Management executives, through a press liaison, declined to comment.