Ares Capital Corporation is a business development company specializing in growth capital, acquisition, recapitalization, mezzanine debt, restructurings, rescue financing, and leveraged buyout transactions of middle market companies. It also makes growth capital and general refinancing. It prefers to make investments in companies engaged in the basic and growth manufacturing, business services, consumer products, health care products and services, and information …
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Competitive advantage assessment
Key strengths
Lean Compensation StructureCompensation discipline is strong (cost efficiency score 0.94).
Premium Fee MarginsFee margin quality is strong (score 0.94).
Key risks
Weak Cash ConversionCash conversion is weak (score 0.15).
Elevated LeverageLeverage is elevated vs peers (score 0.29).
The dashed ring is the peer median. Defense scores are percentile ranks
against peers, so 50 is roughly the typical company in this group.
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Ares Capital Corporation ranks #60 of 173
scored companies in Asset Management by moat score — the top 35%.
The widest moat in the group is Sound Point Meridian Capital Inc (SPMC)
at 77/100.
Moat scores for companies ranked near ARCC in Asset Management
How ARCC scores on the Asset Management Specialized defenses
Fee Revenue Quality
Score 72
· 20% of the moat score
Fee revenue quality is the ability to charge above the industry's falling average and keep charging it.
Client Retention & Revenue Stickiness
Score 34
· 18% of the moat score
Assets under management leave far more easily than they arrive, and the fee leaves with them.
Compensation Discipline
Score 89
· 18% of the moat score
Compensation is the largest expense in asset management and the one that decides whether a good year ever reaches shareholders.
Capital Efficiency
Score 59
· 20% of the moat score
Asset managers are asset-light: with little capital employed, a healthy business should earn a very high return on equity, and a merely average one is a real warning.
Earnings Quality & Cash Conversion
Score 37
· 14% of the moat score
Reported profits here can be flattered by performance fees, seed-capital gains and consolidated fund accounting, none of which recur reliably.
Balance Sheet Strength
Score 25
· 10% of the moat score
Because the business needs so little capital, an asset manager carrying meaningful debt has usually borrowed to buy another manager or to fund distributions.
Ares Capital Corporation (ARCC) scores 56 out of 100 on the StatsAlpha Moat Map, which rates its competitive advantage as moderate. It ranks #60 of 173 scored companies in Asset Management, the top 35%. The score is a weighted composite of 6 competitive defenses, each measured against industry peers of 174 companies in Asset Management. Its strongest defense is Compensation Discipline (89/100) and its weakest is Balance Sheet Strength (25/100).
How does Ares Capital Corporation compare with other Asset Management companies?
Ares Capital Corporation ranks #60 of 173 scored companies in Asset Management by moat score. The widest moat in Asset Management is Sound Point Meridian Capital Inc (SPMC) at 77/100. The companies ranked closest are Barings BDC, Inc. (BBDC) at 57 just above it and T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (TROW) at 56 just below it.
How is the moat score calculated?
Each company is scored with an industry-specific template — Asset Management Specialized in this case, chosen because the defenses that matter to a bank are not the ones that matter to a software company. Every defense combines several financial signals, and each signal is measured as a percentile against a peer group of 174 companies in Asset Management. The defenses are then weighted to produce the overall score out of 100.
Why is Ares Capital Corporation scored with the Asset Management Specialized template?
An asset manager owns almost nothing. It charges a fee on someone else's money, pays much of that fee out in compensation, and keeps the remainder — so its economics turn on the fee rate it can defend, whether client money stays, and how much revenue survives the bonus pool. The Asset Management template scores those questions rather than the balance sheet, which in this industry is largely beside the point.
Which competitive defenses are measured for Ares Capital Corporation?
The Asset Management Specialized template measures 6 defenses, and ARCC scores: Fee Revenue Quality (72), Client Retention & Revenue Stickiness (34), Compensation Discipline (89), Capital Efficiency (59), Earnings Quality & Cash Conversion (37), Balance Sheet Strength (25). Each is scored independently as a percentile against peers, so a company can be strong on one and weak on another — the overall score reflects how those defenses are weighted for this industry.
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