MSCI vs ARES Comparison

MSCI has described its mission as enabling investors to build better portfolios for a better world. MSCI's largest and most profitable segment is its index segment, where it provides benchmarking to asset managers and asset owners. MSCI boasts about $17 trillion in benchmarked assets, including over $2.2 trillion in ETF assets linked to MSCI indexes. The MSCI analytics segment provides portfolio management and risk management analytics software to asset managers and asset owners. In its sustainability and climate segment, MSCI provides ESG data to the investment industry. In private assets, MSCI provides real restate reporting, market data, benchmarking, and analytics to investors and real estate managers.

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.