Vice President, Fund Controller

Ares Operations•Los Angeles, CA

2d•Onsite

About The Position

Ares Management is seeking an experienced and detail-oriented Vice President to join the Finance and Accounting team in Los Angeles as part of the firm’s Real Estate group. The Real Estate Fund Accounting team, comprising over 25 members globally, is responsible for the accounting, reporting, performance, and operations of the group, overseeing and managing $XX BN of AUM. The Vice President will collaborate closely with the global F&A team, partnering with portfolio management, investor relations, senior investment professionals, senior Finance leadership, tax preparers, and external Fund Administrator. Key responsibilities include managing day-to-day Fund Accounting, financial reporting, quarterly reporting, and tax reporting. The ideal candidate should have both public and private experience, strong leadership, and business stakeholder relationship skills. They must understand complex fund structures, waterfalls, track record, attribution, and gross to net return differences. This role requires a dynamic, adaptive, and agile hands-on professional capable of ensuring optimal performance and processes in a fast-paced, rapidly growing environment.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree required
Minimum of 7-10 years of experience in Fund Accounting or a related field with an understanding of Real Estate fund structures, investment property structures, and alternative investments
Strong understanding of Accounting principles and public company financial statements (income statements & balance sheets)
Technically proficient with all MS Office applications
Ability to work independently in a fast-paced, high growth environment
Dependable, great attitude, highly motivated, team player and strong work ethic
Ability to assist in managing several third party relationships
Strong understanding of business and accounting principles (US GAAP), including consolidation reporting/elimination entries
Excellent verbal and written skills; ability to analyze and summarize complex information both verbally and in writing
Strong problem-solving and analytical skills
Excellent Excel skills (to build models, templates, building macros/pivot tables)
Ability to multi-task and prioritize/manage deadlines
Ability to manage challenging workflow in-fast paced, dynamic organization, managing multiple assignments in a deadline driven environment
Strong sense of ownership and accountability
Organizational skills, demonstrated ability to manage competing priorities and lead large scale projects to completion
High accuracy and detail orientation
Excellent communication (written, verbal, presentation, documentation) and client service skills; capability of interacting with key stakeholders to direct prioritization of program related activity
Ability to analyze and summarize complex information clearly, both verbally and in writing
Experience and ability to proactively and continuously identify and analyze problem situations to develop an effective and improve course of action for resolution
Ability to be flexible in terms of hours in order to coordinate with team members across time zones

Nice To Haves

Licensed CPA (active of inactive) preferred
Public and private experience a plus
Exposure in complex tax structured funds or diversified RE investment structures will be an added advantage
Advanced Excel skills strongly preferred
Knowledge of Power BI or other data analytical/visualization tools preferred

Responsibilities

Instruct and oversee fund service providers (administrators, depositaries) to ensure performance is in line with agreed service levels
Liaise with a wide range of internal stakeholders and external service providers to ensure the quality and timely flow of financial data
Oversee calculation of property performance, AUM, NAV, management fees, promote allocations (fund level waterfalls) and cost recharges
Manage preparation of financial statements, investor reports, partner capital statements, presentations, questionnaires and head office management reports
Provide deal support, including financial analysis and execution of deal cashflows
Monitor cash and manage cash distribution process
Allocate and review costs and expense recharges
Manage audit and tax reporting processes
Participate in any new Fund launches
Help maintain manager Fund track record
Maintain Fund dashboard
Review capital call and distribution notices and cash allocation schedules
Participate on DDQ and presentations for fundraising
Manager team to implement technology that helps automate processes for better efficiency, accuracy and consistency
Contribute to the valuation process, calculation of gross to net adjustments and preparation of valuation committee materials (including JV level waterfalls)
General understanding of real estate valuations
Lead F&A oriented data for investment decision process by maintaining fund models, proving scenario/sensitivity analysis, key property and financial metrics and KPIs
Manage budgeting and forecasting process with calculation of management fees and promote
Lead risk management processes with qualitative and quantitative fund data
Instruct and oversee cash management, including oversight of fund reserves and cash requirements
Manage fund level debt facilities (drawdowns, repayments, covenants, extensions)
Build strong working relationships across the Real Estate operation (deal team, service providers) and the wider Ares business
Calculate, monitor, evaluate, and analyze investment, sector, portfolio level and composite returns (TWR, IRR, Multiples, etc.)
Aggregation, analysis and management of portfolio and investment return data on a levered, unlevered, gross basis, net basis, actual and projected data
Calculate and interpret attribution results, performance-based risk and appraisal metrics
Ensure proper consideration is given to required FX conversion for funds and investments having local/functional currencies other than USD
Lead planning and executing strategic projects such as onboarding assets from acquisitions, performance system development, and integrating non-supported business units
Lead and assist with projects that facilitate improvements across the REG
Develop innovative solutions to increase efficiency and enhance reporting and analytical capabilities of the team
Drive consistency and standardization across the respective business strategies within Real Estate
Contribute expertise to team and organizational efforts in relation to systems and internal processes
Work directly with equity deal team for the collection and aggregation of deal level models and returns
Participate in other projects as requested by management