AREIT Adds Second Affiliate Equity Commitment, Bringing Total to $400M

Ares Real Estate Income Trust, or AREIT, has received a second affiliate equity commitment in two weeks, with a newly formed Ares-affiliated special purpose vehicle purchasing $100 million in Class B common shares earlier this week – bringing the nontraded REIT’s total affiliate equity commitment to $400 million since October 2025.

The new commitment came from Ares Perigee Finance HoldCo L.P., a Delaware limited partnership affiliated with AREIT’s adviser, Ares Commercial Real Estate Management LLC. The shares were priced at the fund’s April 30, 2026, NAV per share of $8.1640, a 0.21% increase from the March 31 NAV of $8.1467.

The Perigee commitment is separate from and in addition to a series of investments made by a different Ares affiliate, Ares Apogee Finance HoldCo L.P. As previously reported by AltsWire, Apogee made an initial $200 million purchase of Class B shares in November 2025 and upsized that commitment by $100 million on May 19, bringing its total investment to $300 million. As AltsWire reported at the time of the initial deal, that capital was described as being funded by the company’s sponsor and an institutional investor. Ares did not identify the source of capital for the Perigee tranche beyond describing the vehicle as an affiliate.

Both the Apogee and Perigee investments are structured as Class B common shares, a share class that sits below retail investor share classes in the fund’s share redemption program. Apogee may request redemptions only during the last month of any calendar quarter, subordinate to all other stockholders’ requests. The Perigee agreement includes a separate provision: if the combined Class B holdings of Perigee, Apogee, and their affiliates reach 25% of the fund’s outstanding common stock, either party can trigger a forced buyback to bring the aggregate position back below that threshold.

As of April 30, AREIT reported an aggregate NAV of approximately $3.41 billion across 417,571 fund interests outstanding. The fund’s portfolio comprised 144 real estate properties totaling approximately 30.7 million square feet across 34 U.S. markets, 94.5% leased, with a leverage ratio of 33.1%. The portfolio is weighted toward industrial ($3.08 billion) and residential ($2.68 billion) holdings, with retail, office, and a category that includes self-storage and data center properties rounding out the balance. Quarter-to-date through April 30, the fund raised approximately $126 million in gross proceeds, and satisfied all $11.6 million in redemption requests.

AREIT posted 45.2% GAAP rent growth across its industrial portfolio in the first quarter of 2026 and raised $401 million in gross proceeds for the quarter.

The back-to-back affiliate investments reflect a broader pattern among nontraded REIT sponsors using affiliate or institutional capital to bolster equity bases at a time when third-party fundraising in the sector remains competitive. Private placement REITs posted their second-highest quarter of fundraising on record in the first quarter of 2026, raising $2.3 billion, according to Robert A. Stanger & Company. But that strength is not uniformly distributed. Starwood Real Estate Income Trust, the sector’s most prominent stress case, suspended most investor redemptions and cut its distribution in late April, after reporting a net loss of $112.9 million and approximately $4 billion in near-term debt maturities for Q1 2026. The structure of the Ares affiliate investments, locked up and subordinated to retail share classes at NAV, leaves sponsor capital behind retail investors in the redemption queue rather than competing with them for fund liquidity.

AREIT is a nontraded perpetual life REIT that launched in January 2006 as Black Creek Diversified Property Fund before being rebranded following Ares Management’s acquisition of Black Creek Group. The fund transitioned from a public to a perpetual private offering in July 2024.

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