Ares European Fund has priced a €708.4 million collateralised loan obligation, the firm's first European fund financing CLO, in a transaction facilitated through Goldman Sachs.
The vehicle, designated Ares European Fund Financing CLO I, is structured as a closed-end fund with an indefinite duration and offered under Regulation D exemptions. The minimum investment threshold is set at $5 million, reflecting a target investor base of institutional and accredited investors.
The transaction underscores the growing depth of the European private credit CLO market, which has expanded rapidly since Barings launched the continent's first private credit CLO in November 2024. Several managers have since followed, including Ares itself with a sterling-denominated direct lending CLO earlier in 2025, and RBC BlueBay with multiple issuances through its BBAM platform.
Ares Credit, which manages over $440.5 billion across its credit business globally, has been among the most active participants in the European structured credit space. The firm's Alternative Credit division has positioned asset-based finance as a core growth vertical, complementing its direct lending and opportunistic strategies.
The sizing of the transaction is significant. At €708.4 million, the vehicle ranks among the larger European private credit CLOs issued to date, suggesting both strong investor appetite for the product and a substantial underlying portfolio of European credit assets. Goldman Sachs' role as structuring agent reflects the involvement of bulge-bracket banks in a market that was, until recently, dominated by specialist arrangers.
For the broader European private credit market, the issuance represents continued maturation of financing channels. Private credit CLOs provide managers with a scalable, capital-efficient funding mechanism that can support further deployment without requiring proportionate LP commitments — a structural advantage as funds seek to compete with increasingly aggressive bank-led syndicated offerings in the European mid-market.