Ares Acquisition, a blank check company formed by Ares Management targeting a sustainable business, filed on Friday with the SEC to raise up to $600 million in an initial public offering.
The New York, NY-based company plans to raise $600 million by offering 60 million units at $10. Each unit consists of one share of common stock and one-third of a warrant, exercisable at $11.50. At the proposed deal size, Ares Acquisition would command a market value of $750 million.
The company is led by CEO and Co-Chairman David Kaplan, co-founder and Partner of Ares Management and Co-Chairman of the Ares Private Equity Group, and Co-Chairman Michael Arougheti, co-founder and CEO of Ares Management and Co-Chairman of Ares Capital Corporation. The company plans to target an established business with scale, attractive growth prospects, and sustainable competitive advantages, focusing on those in North America, Europe, or Asia. While it has not selected a target industry, the company does not plan to target the fossil fuel energy industry, including the upstream, midstream and energy services sub-sectors.
Ares Acquisition was founded in 2020 and plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol AAC.U. The company filed confidentially on October 29, 2020. UBS Investment Bank, Citi, Morgan Stanley, and Barclays are the joint bookrunners on the deal.
