Sifting through countless of stocks in the Capital Markets industry can be tedious, and sometimes two stocks are just too similar to judge which is the better investment. If you’re on the fence about investing in KKR & Co. Inc. or Ares Management Corporation because you’re not sure how they measure up, it’s important to compare them on a few factors before making your decision.

Read on to learn how KKR & Co. Inc. and Ares Management Corporation compare based on key financial metrics to determine which better meets your investment needs.

About KKR & Co. Inc. and Ares Management Corporation

KKR & Co. Inc. is a private equity and real estate investment firm specializing in direct and fund of fund investments. It specializes in acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, management buyouts, credit special situations, growth equity, mature, mezzanine, distressed, turnaround, lower middle market, and middle market investments. The firm considers investments in all industries with a focus on software, cybersecurity, fintech, data and information, security, semiconductors, consumer electronics, internet of things (iot), internet, information services, information technology infrastructure, financial technology, network and cyber security architecture, engineering and operations, content, technology and hardware, energy and infrastructure, real estate, services industry with a focus on business services, intelligence, industry-leading franchises and companies in natural resource, containers and packaging, agriculture, airports, ports, forestry, electric utilities, textiles, apparel and luxury goods, household durables, digital media, insurance, brokerage houses, non-durable goods distribution, supermarket retailing, grocery stores, food, beverage, and tobacco, hospitals, entertainment venues and production companies, publishing, printing services, capital goods, financial services, specialized finance, pipelines, and renewable energy. In energy and infrastructure, it focuses on the upstream oil and gas and equipment, minerals and royalties and services verticals. In real estate, the firm seeks to invest in private and public real estate securities including property-level equity, debt and special situations transactions and businesses with significant real estate holdings, and oil and natural gas properties. The firm also invests in asset services sector that encompasses a broad array of B2B, B2C and B2G services verticals including asset-based, transport, logistics, leisure/hospitality, resource and utility support, infra-like, mission-critical, and environmental services. Within Americas, the firm prefers to invest in consumer products; chemicals, metals and mining; energy and natural resources; financial services; healthcare; biopharmaceutical; medical device; health care services; life science tools/diagnostics; health care information technology sub-sectors; industrials; media and communications; retail; and technology. Within Europe, the firm invests in consumer and retail; energy; financial services; health care; industrials and chemicals; media and digital; and telecom and technologies. Within Asia, it invests in consumer products; energy and resources; financial services; healthcare; industrials; logistics; media and telecom; retail; real estate; and technology. It also seeks to make impact investments focused on identifying and investing behind businesses with positive social or environmental impact. The firm seeks to invest in mid to high-end residential developments but can invest in other projects throughout Mainland China through outright ownership, joint ventures, and merger. It invests globally with a focus on Australia, emerging and developed Asia, Middle East and Africa, Nordic, Southeast Asia, Asia Pacific, Ireland, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, France, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Caribbean, Mexico, South America, North America, Israel, Brazil, Latin America, Korea with a focus on South Korea, and United States of America. In the United States and Europe, the firm focuses on buyouts of large, publicly traded companies. For middle market private equity it seeks to invest in companies with enterprise values between $200 million and $1000 million and EBITDA between $50 million to $250 million. The firm prefers to invest in a range of debt and public equity investing and may co-invest. It seeks a board seat in its portfolio companies and a controlling ownership of a company or a strategic minority position. It prefers to invest in initial public offerings, follow-on offerings, PIPE transactions, co-investments or private capital raises. The firm may acquire majority and minority equity interests, particularly when making private equity investments in Asia or sponsoring investments as part of a large investor consortium. The firm typically holds its investment for a period of five to seven years and more and exits through initial public offerings, secondary offerings, and sales to strategic buyers. KKR & Co. Inc. was founded in May 1, 1976 and is based in New York, New York with additional offices across North America, Europe, Australia, Middle East and Asia Pacific.

Ares Management Corporation operates as an alternative asset manager. Its Direct Lending Group segment provides financing solutions to small-to-medium sized companies. The company’s Private Equity Group segment specializes in early venture, turnaround, mid venture, late venture, recapitalization, growth capital, middle market, mezzanine, distressed and growth buyouts. The firm seeks to invest in healthcare, services, energy, industrials and consumer. The firm seeks to takes majority, minority and shared-control investments primarily in under-capitalized companies in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Southeast Asia and Australia. Its Real Estate Group segment invests in new developments and the repositioning of assets, with a focus on control or majority-control investments; and originates and invests in a range of self-originated financing opportunities for middle-market owners and operators of commercial real estate. The firm prefers to invest between $1 million and $500 million in companies having EBITDA between $10 million and $250 million and debt investment value between $10 million and $100 million. Ares Management Corporation was founded in 1997 and is based in Los Angeles, California with additional offices in North America, Europe and Asia.

Latest Capital Markets and KKR & Co. Inc., Ares Management Corporation Stock News

As of September 2, 2026, KKR & Co. Inc. had a $95.5 billion market capitalization, compared to the Capital Markets median of $3.2 million. KKR & Co. Inc.’s stock is NA in 2026, NA in the previous five trading days and down 23.29% in the past year.

Currently, KKR & Co. Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 34.0. KKR & Co. Inc.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $25.8 billion with a 12.2% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 7.8%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $6.320 per share for the current fiscal year. KKR & Co. Inc. currently has a 0.7% dividend yield.

Currently, Ares Management Corporation’s price-earnings ratio is 62.2. Ares Management Corporation’s trailing 12-month revenue is $6.0 billion with a 10.6% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 5.8%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $5.851 per share for the current fiscal year. Ares Management Corporation currently has a 3.9% dividend yield.

How We Compare KKR & Co. Inc. and Ares Management Corporation Stock Grades

Stock evaluation requires access to huge amounts of data and the knowledge and time to sift through it all, make sense of financial ratios, read income statements and analyze recent stock movements. AAII created A+ Investor, a robust data suite that condenses data research in an actionable and customizable way suitable for investors of all knowledge levels, to help investors streamline and work through such data.

AAII’s proprietary stock grades come with A+ Investor. These offer intuitive A‐F grades for each of five key investing factors: value, growth, momentum, earnings estimate revisions and quality. Here, we’ll take a closer look at KKR & Co. Inc. and Ares Management Corporation’s stock grades to see how they measure up against one another.

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KKR & Co. Inc. and Ares Management Corporation Stock Value Grades

Company	Ticker	Value
KKR & Co. Inc.	KKR	F
Ares Management Corporation	ARES	F

Successful stock investing involves buying low and selling high, so stock valuation is an important consideration for stock selection.

Buying stocks that are going to go up typically means buying stocks that are undervalued in the first place, although momentum investors may argue that point.

AAII’s A+ Investor Value Grade derives from a stock’s value score. The Value Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of the price-to-sales ratio, price-earnings ratio, enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) ratio, shareholder yield, price-to-book-value ratio and price-to-free-cash-flow ratio. The score is variable, meaning it can consider all six ratios or, should any of the six ratios not be valid, the remaining ratios that are valid. To be assigned a Value Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) ratio and corresponding ranking for at least two of the six valuation ratios.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are a good value and so on.

KKR & Co. Inc. has a Value Score of 20, which is Ultra Expensive. Ares Management Corporation has a Value Score of 9, which is Ultra Expensive.

The Value Stock Winner: No Clear Winner

Neither KKR & Co. Inc. or Ares Management Corporation has a high enough value grade to be considered a “winner.” Investors who are considering these companies should do additional due diligence and research to see if either could be a good addition to their portfolio. It’s important to look at a wide range of financial metrics in order to determine if KKR & Co. Inc. or Ares Management Corporation is the better investment when it comes to value.

KKR & Co. Inc. and Ares Management Corporation’s Quality Grades

Company	Ticker	Quality
KKR & Co. Inc.	KKR	F
Ares Management Corporation	ARES	F

Like the Value Grade, AAII’s A+ Investor Quality Grade comes from the percentile rank of key metrics. Specifically, the Quality Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of return on assets (ROA), return on invested capital (ROIC), gross profit relative to assets, buyback yield, change in total liabilities to assets, accruals, Z double prime bankruptcy risk (Z) score and the F-Score.

The score is variable, meaning it can consider all eight measures or, should any of the eight measures not be valid, the remaining measures that are valid. To be assigned a Quality Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) measure and corresponding ranking for at least four of the eight quality measures.

The Quality Score is used to assess the underlying “quality” of a particular stock. A higher-quality stock possesses traits associated with upside potential and reduced downside risk. Backtesting of the Quality Grade shows that stocks with higher grades, on average, outperformed stocks with lower grades over the period of 1998 through 2019.

Stocks receive better grades (higher scores) for having higher scores for the quality subcomponents and worse grades (lower scores) for lower scores for the subcomponents.

KKR & Co. Inc. has a Quality Score of 17, which is Very Weak. Ares Management Corporation has a Quality Score of 15, which is Very Weak.

The Quality Stock Winner: No Clear Winner

Neither KKR & Co. Inc. or Ares Management Corporation has a high enough Quality Grade to be considered a “winner.” Investors who are considering these companies should do additional due diligence and research to see if either could be a good addition to their portfolios. It’s important to look at a wide range of financial metrics in order to determine if KKR & Co. Inc. or Ares Management Corporation is the better investment when it comes to quality.

KKR & Co. Inc. and Ares Management Corporation’s Momentum Grades

Company	Ticker	Momentum
KKR & Co. Inc.	KKR	D
Ares Management Corporation	ARES	D

Momentum grades help to uncover stocks experiencing anomalously high rates of return; research finds that stocks with high relative levels of momentum tend to outperform, whereas those with low levels of momentum tend to continue underperforming. Momentum is based on the price change of a stock over a specified period relative to all other stocks.

Typically, AAII looks at the weighted relative strength over the trailing four quarters. The weighted four-quarter relative strength rank is the relative price change for each of the past four quarters. The most recent quarterly price change is given a weight of 40% and each of the three previous quarters are given a weighting of 20%.

KKR & Co. Inc. has a Momentum Score of 34, which is Weak. Ares Management Corporation has a Momentum Score of 30, which is Weak.

The Momentum Stock Winner: No Clear Winner

Neither KKR & Co. Inc. or Ares Management Corporation has a strong enough Momentum Grade to be considered a “winner.” Investors considering these companies should do additional due diligence and research to see if either could be a good addition to their portfolios. It’s important to look at a wide range of financial metrics in order to determine if KKR & Co. Inc. or Ares Management Corporation is the better investment when it comes to momentum.

Other KKR & Co. Inc. and Ares Management Corporation Grades

In addition to Value, Momentum and Quality, A+ Investor also provides grades for Growth and Estimate Revisions.

Earnings estimate revisions scores take into account the magnitude of a company’s earnings surprise in its last two reported fiscal quarters. Often, surprises beget further surprises‐or at least continued sales growth (the exact opposite is generally true, too).

Growth investing builds on the idea that stocks of companies exhibiting strong, consistent and prolonged growth outperform those of slower-growth companies. AAII measures growth through consistency of annual sales growth, five-year sales growth rankings adjusted for extreme levels, and consistency of positive annual cash from operations.

These 2 key factors, when combined with the above, provide a holistic view into a particular stock. Further, by joining A+ Investor you can see whether KKR & Co. Inc. and Ares Management Corporation pass any of our 60+ stock screens that have outperformed the market since their creation.

So, Which Is the Better Investment, KKR & Co. Inc. or Ares Management Corporation Stock?

Overall, KKR & Co. Inc. stock has a Value Score of 20, Momentum Score of 34 and Quality Score of 17.

Ares Management Corporation stock has a Value Score of 9, Momentum Score of 30 and Quality Score of 15.

Comparing KKR & Co. Inc. and Ares Management Corporation’s grades, scores and metrics can act as a solid basis to determine whether they may be a good investment or not. You’ll also want to look at your portfolio’s asset allocation as well as your risk tolerance and financial goals to see if either of these stocks would make a good fit for you. AAII can help you figure out which investments align with your individual needs and preferences.

Investors are encouraged to do their own due diligence and research. In this way, individuals can effectively become managers of their own assets‐without having to rely on others for financial independence. You can count on AAII for timeless articles on financial planning and stock-picking, unbiased research and actionable analysis.

A+ Investor adds to our qualitative teaching with a powerful data suite to help you whittle down investment choices to find stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or mutual funds that meet your needs.

AAII Disclaimer

We make no representations or warranties that any investor will, or is likely to, achieve profits similar to those shown, because past, hypothetical or simulated performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Before making an investment decision, you should consider your circumstances and whether the information on our content is applicable to your situation. This information was prepared in good faith, and we accept no liability for any errors or omissions. The full disclaimer can be read here.