Brookfield seeks record $110 billion acquisitions to spend

Brookfield Asset Management Inc. Over $110 billion invested and eagerly seeking deal opportunities, including acquisitions public institutions incorrect prices.

“There could never have been a better time to be a value investor,” Anuj Ranjan, managing partner and head of business development at Brookfield, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Thursday. “This environment actually limits competition and creates a lot of opportunity. It is a good time to have this kind of dry powder.”

Ranjan said Toronto-based Brookfield has focused on the cash-generating business and has invested $30 billion in the past 18 months. Recent acquisitions include UK home repair company HomeServe Plc and a stake in the tower unit Deutsche Telekom AG.

It’s a “good time” to do deals as long as you “plan for bumps in the road ahead,” says Ranjan, who also heads Brookfield Private Equity in Europe and Asia Pacific. Although the next six to 12 months will be difficult, he said, it will not have a significant impact on the long-term value of resilient companies.

“Public markets don’t value companies as much as private markets do,” Ranjan said. “Today, I think private sponsors should do more public relations to private.”

Brookfield has expanded its office presence throughout Europe in recent years and now operates around 300 people in the area. The company has sought growth amid the turmoil before. In the years following the financial crisis, it struck two transformational deals, buying Australia’s Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Group in 2009 and General Growth Properties Inc. in the United States the following year. Both helped increase its exposure to key areas such as infrastructure and real estate.

Brookfield’s strong focus is on moving the world toward cleaner forms of energy, a shift given new impetus by the Russian war in Ukraine and its impact on fossil fuel prices.