Q4 2023 Letter to Shareholders
Q4 2023
Brookfield Asset Management Shareholders
Overview
We had a strong fourth quarter, capping off an excellent first year for
The successful fundraising across our various flagship series continued, with our infrastructure and private equity strategies closing their largest funds ever, as well as strong momentum for many of our complementary funds. Existing limited partners continued to invest into our funds, often increasing their commitments, and a very large number crossed over into new strategies, deepening their overall relationship with us.
Our Fee-Related Earnings (FRE) and Distributable Earnings (DE) were also solid. FRE and DE were
The Market Environment
It appears that central banks have been successful in dealing with inflation and that interest rates will be going lower around the world in 2024 and 2025. If this occurs, capital market activity and stock markets should be strong.
Market participants' confidence in pricing in risk has increased, which has in tuimproved liquidity in the capital markets. And with record levels of dry powder currently on the sidelines, we expect a very busy period of transaction activity in the next few years, and valuations for real assets should respond accordingly.
Geopolitics can always lead to heightened volatility, but this seems to have become the new normal. Our view is that being an owner of high-quality businesses and assets that form the backbone of the global economy is a safe place to be across all market cycles. This resilience has been proven over decades.
Financial Results and Fundraising
We raised capital across all five of our flagships, as well as a number of complementary strategies that were in the market in 2023. We held several large fund closes since we last wrote to you, which raised
The most significant fundraising updates and deal activity since the beginning of the fourth quarter are:
Infrastructure-In December, we held the final close for the fifth vintage of our flagship infrastructure fund, bringing the total for the strategy to
Q4 2023 Letter to Shareholders |
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scale assets and the momentum on the capital deployment front is very strong. During the fourth quarter we held the final close of the third vintage of our infrastructure debt fund, bringing the total for the strategy to over
RealEstate-We are completing the first close of the fifth vintage of our flagship real estate opportunistic fund strategy at
PrivateEquity-The second vintage of our special investments fund, which provides structured solutions to counterparties, is in the market with an expected rolling first close during the first half of 2024. In conjunction with our recent acquisition of
Credit-Oaktree raised
2024 Should Be a Good Year but Will Require More Hard Work
The free money era of 2020-2022 favored high growth businesses and investors who were aggressive with capital. We chose to pass on many of the transactions during that period as valuations were high. In hindsight, we are very pleased that we stuck to our investing mantra.
Fast forward to 2023 - as capital became less available, the managers that were prudent during the free money periods, and specifically those with extensive track records of performance and long-term relationships with partners, have exceled. Early last year, we decided that odds favored that rates were going to crest in 2023. While most were struggling with liquidity challenges, we invested over
Our confidence also comes from the way we invest. Most of our retucomes from operational excellence in the businesses we run, rather than financial engineering. Our vast operating team of hundreds of thousands of employees gives us a special edge in building value in businesses. Most small, mid-size or merely financially focused firms do not have access to these resources. In an environment where "roll up your sleeves investing" is back in favor, this differentiator should continue to set our franchise apart.
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Our Product Scale and Diversity Supports Consistent Fundraising
As we scale our business, our ability to raise larger funds and meet ambitious fundraising targets has grown. Equally important is our continuous effort to diversify fundraising sources and innovate with new products. This strategy ensures our capability to consistently raise capital across various economic conditions. Across our overall franchise we manage over 100 funds, many of which are actively fundraising at any given moment. Our breadth of products, asset classes and fundraising channels enables us to raise +/-
Insurance Solutions Channel
One of the important capital raising channels we have been building is our insurance solutions business. The pending acquisition of AEL will make
Private Wealth Channel
Another growing fundraising source is our private wealth business, Brookfield Oaktree Wealth Solutions (BOWS). We have been steadily investing in our private wealth platform, which currently has 150 dedicated employees. We have partnered with more than 50 wealth groups worldwide in delivering institutional quality investment strategies to clients and we currently have five dedicated funds being distributed in this channel, including our infrastructure wealth product launched in early 2023 that has enjoyed strong early investor demand. With the team in place, we should be able to raise
Our credit capabilities are larger and broader than they have ever been. With the growing importance that private credit will continue to play in capital markets, we expect our private credit funds to raise and deploy increasingly larger sums of capital. After the successful close of our largest infrastructure debt fund at
In order to manage our growing credit capabilities across Brookfield, Oaktree, LCM, and insurance investment strategies, we are aggregating all of our credit strategies under a new Credit group. We believe this important step will allow us to work effectively across our credit investment teams, provide excellent returns, and maximize our ability to create value for our clients. We are confident that credit will be a meaningful driver of BAM's growth over the next decade given the industry tailwinds and our collective focus. This will help us achieve that.
Open End Funds
In 2023, we observed a slowing in demand for our core infrastructure and real estate open-ended funds, likely due to the uncertain and rising interest rate environment's impact on investor preferences. These funds comprise high-quality, stable assets with consistent cash flows, appealing to yield-focused investors. With interest rates now stabilized and anticipated to decrease, we expect renewed interest in these funds. Furthermore, as our funds are medium sized and have no legacy issues with asset values or redemption lines, we should be among the first beneficiaries of fund flows as the market turns.
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Product Innovation Enables Us to Grow
Core to our success has been our focus on anticipating changes in the market as we create new products and solutions. Over the past several years, we built a multi-disciplinary product development team that works across our businesses and investor segments to develop products that leverage our investment expertise and global presence. Notably, since 2020, we leveraged our existing business to launch leading platforms in direct corporate lending, global energy transition, and structured product solutions, among other products.
While product development has already played an integral role in our success over the past several years, we expect this to be an even bigger driver for us going forward for several key reasons:
- Competitive Advantage: In an increasingly competitive market, being able to offer differentiated and innovative investment products sets us apart, allowing us to take advantage of compelling investment opportunities and attract new investor capital that very few other managers are able to do.
- Enhancing Client Relationships: Offering a range of investment solutions helps us build stronger client relationships, as products and structures can be tailored to meet the specific needs and preferences of institutional and individual investors and enable them to access our capabilities more efficiently.
- Long-TermFocus: A continuous focus on product development reflects our commitment to long-term growth and sustainability. By staying innovative and responsive to market dynamics and investor demand, we are well positioned to succeed and grow across market cycles through a diversified suite of offerings and strategies.
This allowed us in 2023 to launch several new products and strategies. Some notable examples include our
Leveraging our established on-the-ground capabilities and relationships in the
In recent years we have made over
We are also working on new products in infrastructure, asset-backed credit, and renewable power. As we tuto 2024 and beyond, we expect to launch several new products as we continue to scale different parts of our business.
Diversified Managers of Essential Real Assets Are in Demand
Infrastructure and renewable power assets remain very much in favor among alternative asset investors who are increasing their allocations, because these assets have been able to deliver strong market growth, have downside protection in uncertain times, generate inflation-protected cash flows, and, if operated well, enable owners to receive long-term capital appreciation.
In the last fifteen years we have centered our strategies around three mega-trends - decarbonization, deglobalization, and digitalization. Each will require many, many trillions of dollars of capital over the next decades. Simply put, the world is mobilizing to achieve net zero targets, energy security, supply chain resiliency and to meet
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exponentially growing data demand. Our infrastructure, renewable power and energy transition businesses sit at the epicenter of these trends. These trends will propel our growth for decades to come.
We were one of the earliest managers to recognize this opportunity and have used our early mover advantage to build scale, gain operational expertise and establish ourselves as the industry leader in the space. Our scale is a significant competitive advantage that we strive to leverage on behalf of our clients, and this should only get better. We have nearly
Our platform is also built on unmatched diversity. Our strategies in the space enable us to participate up and down the capital structure-from opportunistic equity, core equity, mezzanine debt, senior debt through our insurance accounts, preferred equity, and convertible debt. We raise capital across all of our fundraising channels, including from private institutional investors, insurance accounts, private wealth, as well as
The ongoing consolidation trend within the alternative asset management space, which we participated in five years ago through our partnership with Oaktree, is now even more evident as managers are increasingly expanding into high-growth sectors like infrastructure and renewable power.
Closing
We remain committed to being a world-class asset manager and strive to invest our capital in high-quality assets that easolid returns, while emphasizing downside protection. The primary objective of the company continues to be to generate increasing cash flows on a per-share basis, and to distribute that cash to you by dividend or share repurchases.
Thank you for your interest in Brookfield, and please do not hesitate to contact any of us should you have suggestions, questions, comments, or ideas you wish to share.
Sincerely,
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Chief Executive Officer |
President |
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Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements and Information
All references to "$" or "Dollars" are to
Although
We caution that the foregoing list of important factors that may affect future results is not exhaustive and other factors could also adversely affect future results. Readers are urged to consider these risks, as well as other uncertainties, factors and assumptions carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which are based only on information available to us as of the date of this letter to shareholders. Except as required by law,
Past performance is not indicative nor a guarantee of future results. There can be no assurance that comparable results will be achieved in the future, that future investments will be similar to historic investments discussed herein, that targeted returns, growth objectives, diversification or asset allocations will be met or that an investment strategy or investment objectives will be achieved (because of economic conditions, the availability of appropriate opportunities or otherwise).
Target returns and growth objectives set forth in this letter to shareholders are for illustrative and informational purposes only and have been presented based on various assumptions made by
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Certain of the information contained herein is based on or derived from information provided by independent third-party sources. While
Expectations around future realizations of carried interest are illustrative. To calculate these figures, we assume that we achieve the gross target returates for each of our funds for which we are eligible to eacarried interest. There can be no assurance that we will achieve these target returns or that we will realize these levels of carried interest. Carried interest is a contractual arrangement whereby we receive a fixed percentage of investment gains generated within a private fund provided that the investors receive a predetermined minimum return. Carried interest is typically paid towards the end of the life of a fund after the capital has been returned to investors and may be subject to "claw back" until all investments have been monetized and minimum investment returns are sufficiently assured. This is referred to as realized carried interest. Gross carried interest represents realizations after
Cautionary Statement Regarding the Use of Non-GAAP Measures
This letter to shareholders contains references to financial measures that are calculated and presented using methodologies other than in accordance with
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