Big PE is shrugging off tariffs and capital constraints hamstringing many of its smaller peers. Case in point: Brookfield Asset Management, which hauled in $25 billion across its various strategies during the first quarter, bringing total inflows over the past 12 months to more than $140 billion.
The New York-based firm is touting its scale, diversification and long-term strategy to capitalize on broad-based trends such as decarbonization, deglobalization and digitalization, as well as the growing role of private credit in capital markets, to ride out global market volatility.
“Across many markets today, the headlines do not reflect the underlying fundamentals, and that disconnect is creating compelling opportunities to deploy capital,” said Brookfield’s Connor Teskey on the firm’s Q1 earnings call on Tuesday morning, echoing peers such as KKR and Apollo Global Management who have also been busy investing.
“We believe we are one of the largest active buyers of assets post-Liberation Day, with $25 billion in April alone,” Apollo’s Marc Rowan said on the firm’s earnings call last week.
Q1 fundraising
Brookfield raised $1.5 billion in the first quarter for its renewable power and transition business, of which $700 million went to its second global transition fund. The fund now stands at $14 billion in committed capital towards its $17 billion target final close, which Brookfield expects to hold in the coming months.
Brookfield did not disclose during the call how much it had raised thus far for its fourth infrastructure debt fund, a newly-launched $7 billion target fund that’s also focused on renewable energy.
Energy transition
Brookfield’s renewable transition business invested more than $3 billion last quarter to complete the privatization of French renewable energy developer Neoen, which it acquired last year. It also laid out $1.2 billion to acquire the renewables business of the UK’s National Grid, in a larger $1.7 billion deal that includes debt.
Late last month, the United Arab Emirates’ $30 billion Alterra climate fund made a $100 million co-investment, alongside Brookfield, in Indian renewable energy company Evren to develop 11 gigawatts of solar, wind and battery storage (see, “Anchored by Altérra, TPG and Brookfield raise billions for climate opportunities in emerging markets”).
In March, the Brookfield issued C$450 million (US$315 million) in green bonds to invest in renewable and green projects in North America.
Strategic partners
Governments, corporates and institutions looking to the private sector for strategic partnerships are also creating opportunities, said Teskey. Brookfield, he said, “can deliver not only capital at scale, but operating experience, speed, certainty and a proven ability to execute complex transactions.”
In February, Brookfield and French President Emmanual Macron announced a €20 billion investment to support the deployment of AI infrastructure in the country (see, “With markets down, up and sideways, investors look to ownership, AI and the rest of the world”).
Data4, a Brookfield portfolio company and data center developer, will receive €15 billion to triple its data center capacity in France by 2030. The other €5 billion will go towards data transfer, chip storage and energy generation. Teskey also shouted a strategic partnership with Barclays to help scale its payments platform.
