Ares Capital Management LLC has purchased about $2.5 billion in loan assets from Nomura Holdings Inc., according to two sources familiar with the deal.

Nomura was selling six collateralized loan obligations and a separate fund, said the sources, who declined to be identified because the talks are private.

The Japanese bank said last year it was seeking to strengthen its U.S. presence after buying Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s Asian and European units in 2008. Consolidation among CLO firms picked up in the last year, with at least six transactions in the United States in 2010, as loan prices rose 62 percent to 95.90 cents on the dollar April 20 after falling to 59.20 cents in December 2008, as measured by the Standard & Poor's/LSTA U.S. Leveraged Loan 100 Index.

Bill Mendel, a spokesman for Los Angeles-based Ares, and Peter Truell, a Nomura spokesman, declined comment.

CLOs are a type of collateralized debt obligation that pool high-yield, high-risk loans and slice them into securities of varying risk and return.

Last year Carlyle Group bought about $5.1 billion in loans and other credits managed by Stanfield Capital Partners LLC and $1.2 billion in funds from Mountain Capital Advisors, Mizuho Alternative Investments LLC's U.S. loan management business, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. GSO Capital Partners LP, the credit investment arm of Blackstone Group LP, purchased about $3.2 billion of CLOs from debt manager Callidus Capital Management LLC last year.

On Feb. 15, Resource Capital Corp. said it agreed to buy Churchill Pacific Asset Management LLC from Churchill Financial Holdings LLC, according to a news release. The pickup in CLO sales comes as the price of the debt rises and spreads on the highest-rated portion, the piece rated AAA by Standard & Poor's, tightens.