CCI vs ARES Comparison

Crown Castle owns or manages roughly 40,000 wireless towers in the United States. It leases space on its towers to wireless service providers, which install equipment to support their wireless networks. The company has a very concentrated customer base, with about 75% of its revenue from the Big Three US mobile carriers: Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T. Crown Castle has plans to divest its fiber business, which is expected to be finalized in the first half of 2026. After that, it will be a stand-alone tower operator. Crown Castle operates as a real estate investment trust.

Ares Management is one of the world's largest alternative-asset managers, with $595.7 billion in total assets under management, or AUM, including $367.6 billion in fee-earning AUM, at the end of September 2025. The company has four main business segments: private credit ($391.5 billion in total AUM and $240.2 billion in fee-earning AUM), private equity, ($25.1 billion/$11.8 billion), real estate/real assets ($132.4 billion/$80.5 billion), and other alternatives ($46.7 billion/$35.1 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.