ARES vs HOOD Comparison

Ares Management is one of the world's largest alternative-asset managers, with $622.5 billion in total assets under management, or AUM, including $384.9 billion in fee-earning AUM, at the end of 2025. The company has four main business segments: credit strategies ($406.9 billion in total AUM and $249.8 billion in fee-earning AUM), private equity, ($25.3 billion/$14.4 billion), real estate/real assets ($139.1 billion/$84.1 billion), and other alternatives ($51.2 billion/$36.6 billion). The firm primarily serves institutional investors (80% of AUM) and high-net-worth individuals (20%). Ares operates through more than 35 offices in over 15 countries around the globe.

Robinhood is a diversified financial services provider best known for its retail brokerage platform, which historically caters to a young, risk-seeking clientele that trades heavily on margin and in higher-risk asset classes like options, futures, cryptocurrencies, and more recently, in prediction markets. As those customers' financial needs have begun to mature, Robinhood has rolled out a suite of more conventional products, from retirement accounts to high-yield cash sweep accounts to nascent advisory services (Robinhood Strategies). With $322 billion in customer assets and 27 million active accounts at year-end 2025, the firm has emerged as a significant player in the large and quickly growing US brokerage market.