Associate, Investment Operations

Over the last 20 years, Ares’ success has been driven by our people and our culture. Today, our team is guided by our core values - Collaborative, Responsible, Entrepreneurial, Self-Aware, Trustworthy - and our purpose to be a catalyst for shared prosperity and a better future. Through our recruitment, career development and employee-focused programming, we are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive work environment where high-performance talent of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can build careers within this exciting and growing industry._

Job Description

Primary functions and essential responsibilities
- Perform detailed reconciliations of trade attributes—including traded quantity, price and asset —to ensure alignment with counterparty records
- Timely crosschecking of trades with funding memos/Clear Par, booking trade fees as per funding memo, and settle with correct quantity
- Problem solving, keen eye for breaks in position and cash recon’s, reaching out to agent bank or admin for recon breaks
- Knowledge of loan settlements workflow and prior use of Clearpar advantageous
- Knowledge of Bond, ABS and FX settlement workflows
- Existing knowledge of SWIFT and Euroclear systems, including the ability to initiate and manage trade amendments via SWIFT. Proven experience in resolving trade failures with custodians and counterparties
- Knowledge of MIFID II and/or EMIR reporting advantageous
- Attention to detail when loading and updating trades as needed in our OMS
- Communicates well and able to organize workload to meet deadlines
- Strong attention to detail when dealing with wire uploads
- Direct fund administrators and custodian banks on appropriate processing and review/reconcile processing activity to ensure accuracy.
- Proactively research, resolve and prevent settlement cash and par breaks with custodian banks and third-party administrators
- Handle adhoc requests in a timely fashion
- Identify opportunities and work with all internal and external stakeholders to improve process efficiencies and increase risk mitigation
- Review daily recons between internal systems and third parties and resolve discrepancies
- Participate in department initiatives such as system enhancements, off hours testing and new business conversions as necessary.
- Take ownership of tasks and drive them to completion.
- Demonstrate a strong sense of accountability and a commitment to excellence.

Qualifications:
Education: Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited university in Finance or related discipline

Experience Required:

- Strong fixed-income product knowledge, particularly bank loans
- Strong understanding of the bank loan industry and standards
- Understanding of liquid and derivative products
- Understanding of custodian bank/administrator’s and agent’s data
- Highly proficient in Microsoft Excel
- Proficient in Microsoft Outlook, Word, Wall Street Office and Geneva
- KPI reporting and Powerbi dashboard knowledge is a plus Minimum 2-3 years of investment management operations experience with high emphasis on bank loan operations
- Experience working with an outsource/offshore service provider
- Experience working with brokers, custodians and agent banks
- Self-motivator and highly organized

Reporting Relationships

Principal, Middle Office