Filed by Ares Acquisition Corporation and X-Energy
Reactor Company, LLC
Pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended,
and deemed filed pursuant to Rule 14a-12
under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended
Subject Company: Ares Acquisition Corporation (File No. 001-39972)
Set forth below is a transcript of the conference call held on January 17, 2023 announcing the proposed business combination (the Business
Combination) between Ares Acquisition Corporation (AAC) and X-energy Reactor Company, LLC (X-energy).
Share Conference Transcript
Dan
Aldridge, Founder and Managing Partner of Share Conference Series:
Good morning. I am Dan Aldridge, the founder and managing partner of Share
conference series, and today I have the pleasure of having X-energy Reactor Company. With me today we have J. Clay Sell, the Chief Executive Officer, and David Kaplan, the
co-chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ares Acquisition Corporation and co-founder of Ares and co-chairman of Ares private
equity group. So Im going to turn it over to David for a couple opening comments and then Clay will speak and well get straight into Q&A. As a reminder, use the Q&A button on the top right of the video player to submit your
questions. So with that David, Ill turn it over to you for opening comments.
David Kaplan, Chief Executive Officer, Ares Acquisition
Corporation:
Dan thanks so much. And maybe just a couple quick comments around Ares, and Im not sure how familiar folks are that are listening
to Ares management. We are publicly traded. We manage about $341 billion across credit, private equity, real estate, secondary solutions and what we call strategic initiatives. And across that $341 billion, since about 2015, weve
invested over $3.4 billion in companies and assets that are working to accelerate the energy transition. And I actually believe at a very macro level at the energy transition, the rotation of capital into clean energy is one of the great
investment opportunities of a generation. And were really thrilled to be able to have this partnership with X-energy that really helps to manifest this energy transition and that the significant sort of
the core and to the investment thesis that we have around X-energy is that clean energy and specifically nuclear will play a key role in generating reliable, safe, clean energy in our path to a zero carbon
economy in the coming decades.
In our view, specifically advanced nuclear is not only a key component to that energy transition, but also really key to
our energy security as a country. So our national security. We do believe as well theres a significant opportunity here for an early mover in nuclear like X-energy, and youll hear this from Clay
Im sure, but X-energy has its own proprietary technology and that opportunity is to be a leader in the addressable market. That total addressable market, that TAM is obviously we were referred to it in
just the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom alone is estimated to be about 470 gigawatts or so of additional energy capacity needed by 2040. 15% or so of that as weve analyzed it, are prime opportunities for advanced nuclear technology. So a
great backdrop. You have the energy transition, you have a role for nuclear to play and specifically weve identified in those three countries that 15% of 471 gigawatts.
We also just from a investment thesis standpoint, believe X-energy is well positioned due to its unique ability to
address the needs of both the electric generation market. So the electric grid, as well as the industrial market. And as a result, when we have studied X-energy prospective customer pipeline includes about, I
dont know, 30 or so unique customer opportunities. That includes Dow, that includes Ontario power generation. We see both power generation and industrial applications when the markets represent a potential $500 billion revenue
opportunity, 10 per plants constructed by 2040 growing to about a trillion dollars of a revenue opportunity by 2050. So a very large opportunity in front of it in terms of the company. But X-energy is not just
a leader but a game changer, a bit in the transition to clean energy because the design provides enhanced safety, lower cost, faster construction timelines and a modular scalability, scalability being very important in any new technology when
compared against traditional nuclear.