Former Fortress Real Estate Exec Steve Stuart Joins Ares

Steve Stuart, one of the public faces of Fortress Investment Group’s real estate arm, has landed a new job at Ares Management.

Stuart left Fortress earlier this year after over two decades at the firm and, most recently, leading a team originating new business for credit and real estate.

Stuart has joined Ares as a managing director and will help grow the firm’s commercial real estate debt business, he said in a LinkedIn post. He is working with Bryan Donohoe, who heads the U.S. debt team at Ares Real Estate.

Stuart was part of a team at Fortress that gained a reputation as an aggressive lender willing to take on out-sized deals that others deemed too risky.

Stuart was involved in Fortress’s $1.2 billion loan to help Harry Macklowe close on the bold acquisition of 7 million square feet of office space from Blackstone Group in 2007. Macklowe put up just $50 million of his own money and borrowed an additional $5.8 billion from Deutsche Bank.

“But both [Fortress’ Steve] Stuart and Macklowe knew that Fortress was one of the very few players who might consider it,” author Adam Piore wrote in his book, “The New Kings of New York.”

Los Angeles-based Ares is an investment manager with over $108 billion in real estate assets under management. Its U.S. real estate debt business had $14 billion in assets under management as of June.

The firm has made some notable investments in recent years. In 2024, Ares acquired a majority stake in 525 West 52nd Street in Manhattan, in a deal that values the property at $270 million. Ares also backed a $1.8 billion deal consisting of 100 shopping center properties, according to PERE.

Ares declined to comment. Stuart did not return a request to comment.