Ares Strategic Income Fund Caps Q3 Tender at 5%, Filling 38% of Requests as 13.1% of Shares Sought Exit

The Ares BDC says repeat sellers are driving the queue, with net new redemption requests down about 60% from the second quarter.

September 25, 2026

Ares Strategic Income Fund will fill only about 38% of the repurchase requests submitted in its third-quarter tender offer, after shareholders sought to redeem 13.1% of the fund’s shares against its 5% quarterly limit.

Holders of the non-traded business development company tendered an estimated 50,400,325 shares before the offer expired on September 18. The fund intends to accept tenders equal to 5% of shares outstanding as of July 31, or 38.2% of the amount requested, at each class’s net asset value as of August 31. Tenders will be prorated, with priority for holders of fewer than 100 shares. There is no priority for requests tied to a shareholder’s death or disability.

The result extends a run of prorated tenders at the Ares vehicle, which also accepted only a portion of requests in the first and second quarters of 2026. In its first-quarter offer, the fund took in 43.1% of the shares tendered.

Repeat Sellers Drive the Queue

In a shareholder Q&A released with the results, Ares argued that the pressure is easing. Most of the quarter’s requests came from investors resubmitting unfilled portions of earlier requests.

• Net new requests amounted to roughly 3% of NAV, down about 60% from the second quarter and about 70% from the first.
• In the U.S. private wealth channel, the fund’s largest investor segment, net new requests fell to about 2% of that channel’s NAV.
• Close to 95% of record holders did not tender this quarter.

The fund estimated that an investor who first tendered in the first quarter and resubmitted the unfilled balance each quarter since would have received nearly 80% of the original request. Ares said the remainder could be largely satisfied by year-end if fourth-quarter requests hold at the current quarter’s unfilled level. Unfilled requests do not roll forward automatically and must be resubmitted.

Fund Points to Portfolio Health

Ares rejected the idea that the redemption demand reflects portfolio stress. The fund reported an annualized inception-to-date total return of 9.97% for Class I shares through August 31, a premium of 161 basis points over broadly syndicated bank loans. Class I distributions run at an annualized 9.62% of NAV, and the board has approved distributions in line with prior periods through December 2026. The fund said net investment income continues to exceed the current distribution.

As of June 30, two loans were on non-accrual, representing 0.3% of the portfolio at amortized cost. At August 31, the portfolio spanned 810 companies and was 79% senior secured loans, compared with 831 companies at the end of May.

To fund repurchases, the fund cited more than $4 billion of undrawn capacity across committed debt facilities at the end of August, along with loan repayments, monthly inflows and a liquid credit sleeve. It intends to keep offering to buy back up to 5% of shares each quarter.