Panel, Fireside Chat
The Next Generation of Investment Leaders | Global Conference 2025
- Aries and Eldridge are projected to operate for at least another 20 to 30 years, with Aries maintaining its cultural approach that devotes nearly equal time to culture, process, and execution while conditioning personnel for healthy paranoia regarding disruption.
- Aries intends to replicate a success formula based on scale, flexibility, deep origination, product expertise, and relationship networks within complex global markets, recruiting individuals who accept early failure as a learning mechanism.
- Eldridge aims to simplify insurance by building Zinnia as a tech-chassis platform capable of managing the full product lifecycle from ordering to claims, leveraging digital interfaces that evolve with AI to maximize value for assets with specific attributes.
- Security Benefit assets are expected to grow from a current base of approximately $60 billion to over $100 billion within five years, supported by an anticipated annuity demand potentially approaching "unlimited" levels due to tax-free compounding advantages.
- Eldridge intends to maintain a diversified investment book with one-third in CLOs, one-third in traditional assets, and one-third in self-created, controlled investments, while retaining in-house asset management to achieve 15% to 18% equity compounding.
- The firm plans to sustain a leverage profile of less than six times assets to equity, characterizing itself as the industry's lowest-levered insurance company, while viewing the primary risk as a lack of return rather than exposure to risk itself.
- Ares expects to manage a trillion dollars in assets within five years or sooner, driven by a net operating income and cash flow growth rate exceeding 10%, and is positioned to lead the global private credit market across Asia, Europe, and the United States.
- Ares plans to utilize capital already raised but undeployed to achieve growth targets, opening new markets to capture share and prioritizing "culture carriers" as proven leaders to establish new divisions in credit secondaries, private equity secondaries, and European direct lending.
- Eldridge projects that compounding current assets of $15 billion at 15% annually until age 80 could result in a trillion-dollar valuation, with 99% of executive network and wealth creation anticipated to occur over the next 40 years.
- The ownership groups for the Baltimore Orioles and the Los Angeles Dodgers intend to drive championships, foster community passion, and engage in civic rebuilding, viewing social responsibility and meaningful city impact as equal to on-field success.
- Eldridge plans to expand its sports investment across the landscape, viewing unscripted live content as a unique medium, while building businesses from scratch when viable people and strategies are available rather than acquiring expensive entities.
- Strategic partnerships include utilizing the exclusive Gulfstream G700 arrangement for high-altitude quiet flight and integrating FlexJet with Aman brands to offer exclusive travel experiences, aiming to maximize customer interaction value estimated at $100 million per year.
- Alternative asset managers are expected to increasingly enter the insurance sector to narrow the valuation gap with Berkshire Hathaway, while Eldridge remains well-positioned to grow further through permanent capital, asset capabilities, and a low-leverage profile.
- Aries and Eldridge will continue to source and build organizations capable of finding direct investments within their pipelines, with Ares avoiding complacency among wealthy partners by focusing on capacity and impact.