Jeff Schwartz

And the fact that we have five, six years of investing experience in 10 plus companies and understanding this marketplace and developing a network of

restructuring advisors and restructuring attorneys gives us a real opportunity to identify some of these opportunities and then execute on these investments, which have a level of complexity to them that regular way loan refinancings or regular way buyouts don't have.

I think Ares at its heart is...

a great investment firm in understanding and appreciating and structuring risk versus reward.

And I think that's what we've become very good at as well.

We've taken that DNA forward and brought it down to a less sophisticated part of the market where some of those financial engineering tools are more differentiated even than they were at Aries back in the day.

But we recognize that the best way to make money for investors is not the straight down the middle of the fairway buyout that everybody else is competing

We look for transactions that have some complexity to them.

Our investments are generally structured where we feel like we can attach into a capital structure at a point with terms and protections and a rate that is a very attractive return profile with disproportionate upside versus downside risk.

It's a good question.

I think that the most important thing is delivering on what you say you are going to deliver on.

The advisors in the space, it's a small ecosystem of restructuring lawyers and advisors who participate in these situations.

People need to move fast.

Advisors need to pick capital providers who they know are going to deliver on what they put in a term sheet or what they put in an LOI.

And if you develop a reputation of being somebody who retrades at the 11th hour, you're not in the business for a very long time because nobody's going to take your LOIs or your indication seriously.

It's also important to deliver with capital on a timely basis.

So you have to be able to move quickly and efficiently.

So it's not only you can't retrade on terms and pricing, you also can't string a process out when these businesses are often liquidity challenged.

facing the prospect of missing payroll, missing interest payments in a situation where they need a capital solution quickly that they can count on.

That's another competitive advantage.