Ares Strategic Income accepts 38.2% of Q3 tendered shares

Ares Strategic Income Fund accepted 38.2% of the shares tendered in its third-quarter repurchase offer, paying about $515.1 million. Net assets fell to $9.92 billion at Sept. 30 from $10.21 billion at June 30.

Ares accepted about 19.3 million shares, or 5% of shares outstanding as of July 31, on a pro rata basis after giving priority to odd lots. It paid $26.74 per share, less any early repurchase deduction. Holders tendered 50.4 million shares, or 13.1% of shares outstanding, worth about $1.35 billion at the nontraded business development company's Aug. 31 net asset value. AltsWire first reported the figures.

For advisors, the fill rate is the planning number: a client who tendered received 38.2% of the amount requested, with the remainder returned. The fund filled 43.1% of first-quarter requests and 34.7% in the second. The binding constraint is the 5% cap on shares repurchased each quarter, not the size of an individual request.

New share sales fell to about $165.4 million in the quarter from about $1.74 billion a year earlier, against $515.1 million of repurchases. Class I shares accounted for $126.5 million of the sales, Class S shares $20.9 million and Class D shares $18 million.

Ares was not the only fund to leave requests unfilled. Across nontraded NAV business development companies, $8.2 billion of redemption requests went unfilled in the third quarter, according to Stanger's tally cited in Private Wealth Daily's earlier reporting.

NAV per share was $26.69 for each class at Sept. 30, compared with $26.71 at June 30 and $27.48 at the end of 2025. Annualized distribution rates were 9.64% for Class I shares, 9.39% for Class D shares and 8.79% for Class S shares. Net investment income was $219 million, down about 13% from $251.9 million in the second quarter, and the fund declared $242 million of distributions in the quarter, $23 million more than it earned.

Payment-in-kind income was 7.2% of total investment income in the third quarter, down from 8.3% in the second quarter and up from 6.2% a year earlier. At Sept. 30, loans on nonaccrual status were 0.4% of investments at amortized cost, or 0.2% at fair value, and the fund reported about $3.8 billion undrawn under credit facilities it expanded to $4.1 billion in May.