Brookfield Has $90 Billion for Deals After Fundraising Boom

(Bloomberg)—Brookfield Asset Management Ltd.’s earnings rose in the fourth quarter as it wrapped up a record year of fundraising that has given the firm more than $90 billion to invest.

The Canadian alternative asset manager reported distributable earnings of $569 million, or 35 cents a share, up 6% from the prior year. It’s the first quarterly report for Brookfield Asset as a public company after it was spun out of parent Brookfield Corp. in December.

Brookfield rose 1% to $34.29 at 11:50 a.m. in New York.

The company raised a record $93 billion in capital last year. “Our fundraising outlook remains strong,” Chief Executive Officer Bruce Flatt and President Connor Teskey said in a letter to shareholders. “In 2023, we expect to have three flagship funds in the market, along with several complementary perpetual strategies and other long-term funds.”

Brookfield Corp. spun off a 25% stake in the division in an effort to gain a higher valuation by separating the money-management business from its own investment capital.

Brookfield Asset managed $418 billion in fee-bearing capital at the end of December — up 15% — across asset classes including real estate, infrastructure, credit, private equity and renewable power. About a quarter of that total comes comes from other entities in the corporate family, including Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, Brookfield Renewable Partners and its insurance platforms.

The Toronto-based company plans to more than double that to $1 trillion by 2027, driven by ambitious plans to grow in private credit and insurance. Some of the growth may come through acquisitions, Flatt suggested at a conference in December.

Brookfield invested $73 billion and sold $34 billion of investments during 2022, Flatt and Teskey said in their letter.

Fundraising Continues

Brookfield plans to launch its second global transition fund, focused on decarbonization investments, in the first half of this year and expects it to be “meaningfully larger” than the $15 billion first fund, Teskey said during an analyst call. The firm also recently started raising money for its real estate flagship fund.

During the fourth quarter, the firm held additional closes for its infrastructure and private equity funds at $22 billion and $9 billion, respectively. Brookfield has targeted raising as much as $25 billion for the infrastructure fund, Bloomberg reported last year, and $12 billion for the private equity strategy.

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