Q2 2025 Brookfield Asset Management Ltd Earnings Call

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Speaker #2: Good day and thank ou for standing by. Welcome to the Brookfield Asset Management second quarter 2025 conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode.

Speaker #2: After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star when one of our telephone.

Speaker #2: You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star when one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

Speaker #2: I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jason Fooks, Managing Director of Investor Relations. Please go head.

Speaker #3: Thank you for joining today for Brookfield Asset Management's earnings call for the second quarter of 2025. On the call today, we have Bruce Flatt, our Chief Executive Officer, Connor Teske, our President, and Hadley Pier Marshall, our ief Financial Officer.

Speaker #3: Before begin, I'd like to remind you in today's comments, including in responding to questions and in discussing new initiatives and our financial and operating performance, we make forward-looking statements, forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian and US securities law.

Speaker #3: These statements reflect predictions of future events and trends and do not relate to historic events. They're subject to known and unknown risks and future events and results may differ materially from such statements.

Speaker #3: For further information on these risks and their potential impacts on our company, please see our filings with the Securities Regulators in Canada and the US and the information available on our website.

Speaker #3: Let me quickly run through the agenda for today's call. Bruce will begin with an overview of the quarter, highlighting the strength of our platform and discuss how we're ed for long-term growth, particularly around our thematic investment strategies.

Speaker #3: Connor will discuss our accelerating pace of investment activity and monetizations, both at multi-year highs and the growing opportunity to ach individual investors through retirement and wealth channels.

Speaker #3: Finally, Hadley will walk through our financial results, balance sheet, and some of our recent strategic initiatives. After our al remarks, we'll open the line for questions.

Speaker #3: Before I hand things over, I'd like to take a moment to welcome the new analysts who have initiated coverage on Brookfield over the past few months.

Speaker #3: We're glad to have you with us. To ensure we can hear from as many participants as possible, 're asking everyone to please limit themselves to one question.

Speaker #3: If you have additional questions, please rejoin the queue, and we'll be happy to take more questions if time permits. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Bruce.

Speaker #4: Thank everyone joining us on this call. We delivered strong results this quarter with fee-related earnings up 16% to $676 million. Distributed earnings were up 12% to $613 million.

Speaker #4: We raised $22 billion of capital in the quarter, and over the past 12 months, $97 billion. Helping drive fee-bearing capital to $563 billion which was 10% up year over year.

Speaker #4: The broader market environment is very constructive. M&A is gaining traction, and there's a significant liquidity with well-functioning capital markets. A much different environment than we saw even a few months ago when investors were waiting for signs of stability.

Speaker #4: This shift plays directly to our strengths. We have always focused on long-term mission-critical investments related to backbone of global economy and the continues to be our strategy.

Speaker #4: The businesses we own, critical infrastructure, renewable power, industrial and logistics assets, high-quality real estate, and essential service businesses provide stable, inflation-length cash flows which are sought after in a market where resiliency is valued.

Speaker #4: This opportunity set is large and compelling and has driven by three powerful themes which we have discussed for years with you. Digitalization, decarbonization, and deglobalization.

Speaker #4: These three Ds are more relevant today than ever before. They have expanded and are in converging in ways that are accelerating demand for capital at a global scale.

Speaker #4: First, deglobalization has evolved from a discussion around supply chain resiliency into a broader reordering of global trade. We are seeing increased reshoring and nearshoring across manufacturing and significant investment in alternative and duplicate supply chains.

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Speaker #4: That is driving a surge in demand for logistics hubs, advanced manufacturing facilities, and modern industrial infrastructure. Decarbonization originally centered on net zero commitments now also reflects growing concern around energy security and more and increasingly grid stability.

Speaker #4: The focus on new energy sources is no longer a long-term policy goal. It is a near-term economic imperative. The lowest cost, fastest to market, scalable solution remains renewable power, most importantly increased solar penetration is driving soaring demand for the grid-stabilizing benefits of hydro, nuclear, and storage.

Speaker #4: Lastly, digitalization. Which initially focused cloud infrastructure, telecom towers, and fiber, has entered a new phase. Artificial intelligence is transforming how data is created, processed, and consumed.

Speaker #4: That transformation is driving exponential demand for computing power, data center capacity, and sovereign-scale AI campuses. In fact, we believe the infrastructure build-out for AI will be one of the largest capital formation cycles of this generation.

Speaker #4: Connor will speak more about our positioning in AI, but the bottom line is this. We have scale experience and integrated approach that few can match.

Speaker #4: And we are viewed as a partner of choice. We are developing next-generation AI infrastructure around the world. With having already built 2,000 megawatts of data center capacity and being one of the largest renewable providers in the world, we can deliver on large, complex transactions integrated with energy land entitlement and development under one roof.

Speaker #4: And that is exactly what the largest hyperscalers and governments are looking for. In a partner. The convergence of these megatrends has created a powerful investment landscape.

Speaker #4: We are uniquely positioned to lead. We are investing at scale in these high-growth sectors, supported by multi-decade structural tailwinds. This year to date, we invested $85 billion.

Speaker #4: We also harbored investments that have efited from our operating value approach, and sold over $55 billion of assets at very good returns. This represents our highest level of activity in years.

Speaker #4: Connor will discuss monetization more broadly in little more depth. But these realizations demonstrate the quality of our portfolio and the value creation delivered by our operating teams.

Speaker #4: The current environment marked by secular tailwinds improving sentiment and a premium uncertainty is suited to our strategy. Our focus remains the same. Invest with discipline, for value, protect downside, return client capital to clients, at excellent returns.

Speaker #4: By doing so, we will continue to be rewarded with growing fee-bearing capital and the ability to deliver on long-term value to our areholders. I'll now turn the call over to Connor to walk through how we are deploying capital, building strategic partnerships, and monetizing assets across our global platform.

Speaker #4: Thank you, Bruce. And good morning, everyone. As Bruce highlighted, the market environment is more constructive today. And the structural drivers behind our business have been accelerating.

Speaker #4: With these themes converging to create an unprecedented demand for assets that make up the backbone of the global economy, Brookfield is uniquely positioned to meet that need.

Speaker #4: This is evident across our platform, where we are deploying capital into long-term trends at greater rates, and forming strategic partnerships that reinforce our leadership position.

Speaker #4: Let's start with partnerships. We recently entered into several large-scale agreements that reflect the depth of our platform and the confidence that the world's largest governments, corporations, and institutions place in Brookfield.

Speaker #4: The first is a $10 billion public-private investment program to support the Swedish government in building out of next-generation digital infrastructure to power the growth of AI and cloud computing within the country.

Speaker #4: This framework allows us to integrate our renewable infrastructure and real estate capabilities to deliver a full-suite solution at scale. The second is a renewable energy framework agreement with Google, under this agreement, we will deliver up to 3,000 megawatts of hydroelectric capacity across the United States.

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Speaker #4: Starting with initial contracts valued at more than $3 billion. These facilities provide stable, clean, baseload power at ical input for AI and data operations.

Speaker #4: These transactions build on other strategic partnerships we've ready formed. With Microsoft, Barclays, and the French government, to deliver high-value infrastructure. This is part of a broader shift.

Speaker #4: Sophisticated counterparties are increasingly turning us for our ability to not only bring capital at scale, but to bring integrated solutions and, most importantly, the experience and capabilities to execute with certainty.

Speaker #4: Turning now to investment activity, we are seeing transaction volumes increase, particularly around the same secular themes. Nowhere is the impact of the three Ds more visible than in our infrastructure business.

Speaker #4: This year, we have committed to a number of major infrastructure transactions totaling over $30 billion in enterprise value. These include Colonial Pipeline, the largest refined products pipeline in the United States, Wells Fargo Rail, the second largest rail car leasing platform in North America, Hotwire Communications, a leading US fiber to the home provider, and even yesterday, Duke Energy Florida, a vertically integrated electric utility serving 2 million customers with 53,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines and over 13 gigawatts of installed generation capacity.

Speaker #4: Each of these assets is mission-critical, defensively positioned, and underpinned by long-duration cash flows. This pace of activity is only possible because of our global footprint and readiness to deploy at scale.

Speaker #4: We can move decisively, underwrite large and complex assets given our experience, and we will use our operating capabilities to drive value in these businesses under our ownership.

Speaker #4: Based on our advanced pipeline, this recent pace of activity is not expected to slow down. At the same time, we are seeing robust demand for high-quality assets and businesses we invest in, as evidenced by a significant increase in monetization activity so far this year.

Speaker #4: Year to date, we've announced asset sales valued at over $55 billion generating $33 billion of equity proceeds. These exits have achieved strong returns and reflect the operating value we've created over time.

Speaker #4: And we are seeing this across our franchise. In real estate, we've announced $15 billion of sales across senior housing, net lease, student housing, and hospitality.

Speaker #4: We also completed the IPO of Leela Palaces in India at a record value for the sector. In infrastructure, we've announced the sale of nearly $13 billion of assets, including partial interest in Patrick Terminals, our final stake in NGPL, and stabilized data centers developed through our ata4 platform.

Speaker #4: We've also been active in renewable power, exiting wind and hydro assets, and in private equity, where we've returned more than $10 billion to clients over the past two years.

Speaker #4: And while we're harvesting value today, we're equally focused on tomorrow's opportunities. None more important than AI infrastructure. Artificial intelligence is driving exponential demand for compute and requires an unprecedented build-out in infrastructure.

Speaker #4: Data centers, power, fiber, liquid cooling, and semiconductor capacity are all essential, and require trillions in capital investment. This is the next frontier for infrastructure investing, and Brookfield is well-positioned to lead.

Speaker #4: We already have strong capabilities in power, in data center development globally, and we are scaling these platforms aggressively. But the infrastructure outside the box, land, power, and buildings essentially the racks and shelves, is only part of the story.

Speaker #4: The infrastructure in the box: the compute, chips, and cooling systems have largely been funded by corporate balance sheets. We believe that will change. We see an emerging opportunity long-term private capital to help fund this next wave of AI build-out.

Speaker #4: We're already seeing demand for GPU infrastructure as a service. Long-term compute capacity delivered off balance sheet and funded by third-party private capital. We also see opportunities across the broader AI supply chain.

Speaker #4: From liquid cooling and power distribution to fiber networks and chip fabrication capacity. Combined with the need for developers that can deliver turnkey AI campuses, as we are doing in Sweden and France, we believe this may ultimately support a dedicated strategy of its own.

Speaker #4: Our integrated platform, spanning equity and credit, allows us to deliver these solutions with speed, structure, and scale. And our relationships with governments, hyperscalers, and industrial leaders are generating proprietary deal flow across the new AI ecosystem.

Speaker #4: Alongside this transformation in infrastructure, we're also seeing a transformation in our client base. For decades, alternatives have been driven by institutional capital. Particularly defined benefit pensions and sovereign wealth funds.

Speaker #4: That remains our core base and it continues to grow rapidly. But a new major growth engine is now emerging. The rise of individual access to alternative investments.

Speaker #4: Defined contribution plans, insurance-based savings, and private wealth are quickly becoming the next frontier. In the US alone, 401(k) plans and retail annuities now represent over $10 trillion in assets, on par with institutional pools.

Speaker #4: And private wealth plans represent another $10 trillion opportunity. A recent executive order from the US administration could accelerate this shift, by laying the groundwork for greater access to private strategies through workplace retirement plans.

Speaker #4: Even a modest reallocation could result in hundreds of billions to trillions of net new flows into alternatives over time. We are well prepared for this evolution.

Speaker #4: In this evolving landscape, distribution will matter. But it is the quality, and durability of the products that will ultimately determine success. Our business is centered around real assets and essential business services, that offer income, capital stability, and inflation protection that long-term retirement and wealth portfolios require.

Speaker #4: We've made significant investments across our platform to meet the needs of retail investors, through the build-out of our private wealth and retirement platform. Brookfield Wealth.

Speaker #4: Which is on track to raise over $30 billion of capital this year from private wealth and insurance annuity channels. This year, we're launching two new offerings focused on private equity and asset-based finance.

Speaker #4: And at the same time, we are expanding our dedicated teams for both private wealth and defined contribution channels. At the same time, we manage approximately $100 billion and growing portfolio of annuities on behalf of Brookfield Wealth Solutions, which is designed to generate stable, attractive returns for retirement accounts.

Speaker #4: And that platform continues to expand globally. Last week, Brookfield entered into an agreement to acquire Just Group, a leading provider of retirement services in the UK individual retirement market.

Speaker #4: While Brookfield Asset Management is not contributing capital to the transaction, or taking on insurance liabilities, upon closing, we could become the investment manager for a significant portion of Just Group's $36 billion portfolio, on terms consistent with our existing arrangement with Brookfield's insurance group, Brookfield Wealth Solutions.

Speaker #4: This will immediately add stable, incremental fee-related revenue for our business, with significant upside as Just Group's origination capabilities support further growth in retirement savings.

Speaker #4: This transaction demonstrates the significant opportunity for us to service BWS's growing global platform. A feature that remains underappreciated upside for our business. While such transactions are discrete in nature, they continue to be a meaningful and highly accretive source of growth for us, as part of Brookfield's ecosystem.

Speaker #4: In summary, our global scale, real asset focus, and track record of delivering income, stability, and downside protection make us well-suited to serve this new cohort of investors.

Speaker #4: And as capital flows expand from institutions to individuals, we are well-positioned to lead. To close, across our business, we are seeing an acceleration of the most important drivers of our growth.

Speaker #4: Capital markets are robust, partnerships are expanding, and the pipeline of opportunities continues to grow. We are investing behind long-term themes, monetizing into strong demand, and leaning into sectors where we have a competitive edge.

Speaker #4: With a strong balance sheet, global platform, and long-term orientation, we are well-positioned in today's market and excited about what lies ahead. With that, we'll turn the call over to Hadley.

Speaker #5: Thank you, Connor. Today, I'll provide an overview of our second quarter financial results, which demonstrated the advantage of our stable and predictable business model.

Speaker #5: I'll also discuss our ong fundraising performance and our balance sheet positioning. We delivered strong financial performance in the second quarter. Fee-bearing capital increased to $563 billion up 10% year over year.

Speaker #5: Over the last 12 months, fee-bearing capital inflows totaled $85 billion, of which $60 billion came from fundraising, and $25 billion came from deployment of uncalled commitments.

Speaker #5: We saw contributions from scaling our partner manager platforms and growth of our listed affiliates' market caps. The strong growth in ur capital base continues to drive the strong growth in our earnings.

Speaker #5: One of the most unique features of our model is that fee-related earnings comprise nearly all of our distributable earnings, making our earnings highly stable and predictable.

Speaker #5: Which particularly valuable in today's environment. Fee-related earnings were $676 million or $0.42 per share, and DE was $613 million or $0.38 per share. That translates into 16% and 12% growth from the same period last year, respectively.

Speaker #5: With earnings partially offset by higher interest expense paid on our 750 million bond deal, issued in the quarter. And lower interest income, as we've deployed our cash to acquire partner managers, which will pay off over the long term.

Speaker #5: Overall, growth has grown by strong fundraising 97 billion over the last 12 months and robust deployments. Notably, year to date, we've deployed over $85 billion of capital into investments, including over $50 billion of equity value.

Speaker #5: This has been a huge catalyst for our business, and we will continue to be active on the deployment front, given our robust pipeline. The simplicity and consistency of our earnings anchored almost entirely in reoccurring fees, gives us a strong foundation to continue to build from, especially as we grow further our capital base and launch new strategies.

Speaker #5: Lastly, on financials, our margin expanded 56% up 1% from the prior year quarter. Let me spend a minute discussing some of our quarterly fundraising highlights.

Speaker #5: In total, we raised $22 billion of capital bringing the 12-month fundraising total to $97 billion. Notably, almost three-quarters of our fundraising for the quarter came from complementary strategies.

Speaker #5: Demonstrating the growing diversity and strength of our product suite. Which now provide consistent and increasing fundraising regardless of whether our flagships are in the market.

Speaker #5: Within renewable power and transition, we raised $1.5 billion including over $800 million for the second dentage of our global transition flagship. Bringing total capital raised to over $15 billion.

Speaker #5: This is already the world's largest energy transition strategy, and we will raise a significantly more capital before our final close later this quarter. Infrastructure fundraising totaled $1.7 billion including over $1 billion raised for our super core infrastructure strategy.

Speaker #5: The funds' largest quarter in over three years. And over $800 million raised for our private wealth infrastructure vehicle, which is the strongest quarter ever.

Speaker #5: In addition, we raised $1.3 billion across private equity strategies, and $1.8 billion across real estate strategies, including $500 million for the fifth dentage of our flagship real estate strategy.

Speaker #5: The scale and diversity of our fundraising, especially across our complementary funds, continues to show its strength. And we will have strong fundraising tailwinds in the coming months with two of our flagships currently in the market expecting final closes shortly.

Speaker #5: Turning now to private credit, where our platform continues to grow in both scale and capability. During the quarter, we raised $16 billion across our credit strategies.

Speaker #5: Our partner managers brought in over $10 billion and we raised more than $4 billion from insurance accounts. We also raised over $800 million for the fourth dentage of our infrastructure mezzanine debt strategy, which will hold its first close shortly.

Speaker #5: Bringing total capital raised to $4 billion. With more than $250 billion of fee-bearing credit capital, we manage one of the largest private credit franchises globally.

Speaker #5: Importantly, we have meaningful origination capabilities having deployed and committed over $10 billion during the quarter and over $30 billion over the past year. Our platform is highly diversified across credit strategies, including asset-backed finance, opportunistic credit, and real asset lending.

Speaker #5: This diversity is key as it gives us the ability to remain disciplined when certain markets become commoditized, or when risk-adjusted returns are less compelling.

Speaker #5: And to focus instead on areas where we see more attractive opportunities. Today, we continue to see strong demand in asset-backed finance and real assets.

Speaker #5: Two areas that align closely with our strength. Deploying large-scale capital with specialized underwriting capabilities or in sectors where we have deep domain expertise, like infrastructure, power, and real estate.

Speaker #5: These capabilities have also guided our partnership with managers who share our focus and can help expand our platform. In the quarter, we invested approximately $350 million towards buying and growing our partner managers.

Speaker #5: Including an additional 9% stake in primary waste, our leading platform for music royalties, participating in the Castle Lake-led acquisition of Concor, especially consumer credit manager and origination platform, and increasing our ownership in Oaktree.

Speaker #5: Additionally, we expect to finalize our acquisition of a 50% stake in Angel Oak, a leader in non-qualified mortgage origination. Later this quarter. These are high-quality, scalable platforms that hance our credit capabilities and position us to continue delivering strong risk-adjusted returns.

Speaker #5: As for our balance sheet, at quarter-end, we had $1.5 billion in liquidity. We continue to use our asset-like balance sheet to seed new products and support strategic partnerships, including the up-and-coming Angel Oak closing.

Speaker #5: With the goal of generating long-term high-quality revenue streams. We were also pleased to be added to the Russell 1000 index in June. A first step in our broader goal of achieving broader inclusion in the US equity indices.

Speaker #5: We are prioritizing this initiative, and we believe we are well-positioned to continue making progress. And lastly, we declared a quarterly dividend of $43.75 per share, payable to shareholders of record as of August 29th.

Speaker #5: To close, we remain firmly on track with our long-term growth objectives. Our diversified platform, operational depth, and global reach continue to give us a competitive edge in today's environment.

Speaker #5: Our strategies anchored in the megatrends of digitalization, decarbonization, and deglobalization. And we're scaling into the areas where these trends intersect, particularly AI infrastructure, energy transition, and critical real assets and essential businesses.

Speaker #5: We look forward to sharing more of these themes at our Investor Day on September 10th here in New York. Thank you for your continued support.

Speaker #5: Operator, we can open up to questions now.

Speaker #2: Thank ou. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star when wanting your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star when won again.

Speaker #2: Please stand by. We compile the Q&A roster. And our first question will come from Michael Cypress from Morgan Stanley, your line is open.

Speaker #6: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. This is Barron Thomas on for Mike. Wanted to ask about the fundraising backdrop, how you see that progressing into the second half of this year, and into 2026, and what you see as some the key contributors there.

Speaker #6: Also, more broadly, how is the overall environment for raising capital evolving given industry challenges around DPI? Thanks.

Speaker #4: Good morning. Thank you for the question. We would characterize the fundraising environment as incredibly robust, to put it simply, we're raising more money in more places across more products than at any point in our history.

Speaker #4: And that's both by geography and by asset class and product. As an example, year to date, we've raised twice as much capital in Europe as we did versus last year.

Speaker #4: But perhaps even more important, and really characterized by this quarter, is just the growth in terms of our complementary strategies. This quarter, approximately three-quarters of our fundraising came from complementary strategies.

Speaker #4: Showing the increasing diversity of our business and how these products are becoming a very critical and meaningful growth driver for our business. Flagships are going to continue to drive step changes in our growth and our profitability.

Speaker #4: But the growing number and growing size of our complementary products are providing greater stability and ongoing growth to our business. So where we sit today, we very much expect fundraising this year to be bigger than last year.

Speaker #6: Thank you.

Speaker #2: Thank you. And our next question will come from Sherilyn Radborn from TD Cowan, your line is open.

Speaker #7: Thanks very much and good morning. Connor, I wanted pick up on the prospect for alternatives to gain access to the broader retirement market. I think there's been a lot of emphasis placed on distribution and shelf-based thus far, but in the letter you comment that ultimately you think the product offering will be the key determinant of success.

Speaker #7: Can you elaborate on that a bit more and comment on timing as well?

Speaker #4: Perfect. Thank you for the question. You are absolutely correct. This is a a major and significant growth opportunity for our business. We feel it will grow incrementally over the next several years and decades.

Speaker #4: But you're right. There's two things of note. One, success in this space is going to be driven by those with the brand, the scale, and the track record.

Speaker #4: And in this regard, we feel we're second to none. And then secondly, we feel the winners are going to be determined by who has the right products to meet the needs of these investors and these new pools of capital.

Speaker #4: And here, our leadership in the right asset classes notably real assets across infrastructure, power, real estate, and asset classes that have long duration inflation-protected cash flows which within the alternative space absolutely make the most sense for retirement products.

Speaker #4: So at this point, our focus is utilizing our leadership in these key sectors to provide the right products across the right asset classes as this opportunity evolves.

Speaker #4: And we have every intention to be a leader in the space as the opportunity grows.

Speaker #2: Thank you. And our xt question will come from Alex Blowstein from Goldman Sachs, your line is open.

Speaker #8: Hey, guys. Hey, good morning. I was hoping we can spend a couple of es on insurance. Obviously, an important growth area for the firm.

Speaker #8: Two-part question there. I ess number one, we've seen generally increased competition and tighter credit spreads. In the US, retail channel how are you guys thinking about both growth in the US retail with respect to kind of that 20-ish billion dollar target you've talked about in the past, and the ability to ultimately pivot and rotate more assets into Brookfield strategies.

Speaker #8: And then secondly, I was hoping you could also hit on the Just acquisition. And just kind of thinking what kind of footprint and the ambitions you might have in the UK market on the back of that deal.

Speaker #4: Thanks, Alex. Maybe taking that all together, in terms of the Just group, transaction, for everyone's benefit, Brookfield Wealth Solutions last week announced an agreement to acquire Just Group, a leader in provider of UK retirement products.

Speaker #4: If this transaction is successful, in closing, we could expect to manage a significant portion of Just's $35 billion plus portfolio under our existing IMA with BWS.

Speaker #4: And this would add immediate high-quality stable fee-bearing capital under our platform. Perhaps most important is we feel this transaction, again, highlights an underappreciated benefit of and an underappreciated upside for Brookfield asset management, which is as BWS continues to scale, we get to partner with them on that growth and scale our asset management activities to support their business.

Speaker #4: And we get to do so without the need to invest capital or take on insurance liabilities. And while these transactions are somewhat discreet, that is absolutely a growth platform.

Speaker #4: It grew first in the U.S., now it's growing in the U.K., and there's the potential that it will grow in other markets around the world.

Speaker #4: And we certainly will look to benefit and prosper and grow alongside that business. In terms what we're seeing in the United States and the ability for that business to grow, we very much feel it's consistent with what we've id in the past.

Speaker #4: Yes, there are other market participants in the space, but the underlying fundamentals are incredibly robust. There is more demand, for these types of products today than ever before.

Speaker #4: There will be more demand next year than there is this year. By having leading platforms, we are well positioned to capture our portion or more of that long-term growth trend.

Speaker #7: And maybe I'll just add to Connor's remarks and talk a little about what we're eing in credit specifically and deploying that capital because obviously credit is a big area for us.

Speaker #7: We manage over $300 billion, a major player. And we see significant growth, especially around our core competencies. So that's around asset-backed finance, real assets, and opportunistic credit.

Speaker #7: And these are areas where we've had a long history of investing competitive advantages around the origination side and, of course, the deep expertise that we bring, plus the ability to structure complex investment opportunities.

Speaker #7: With appropriate downside protection. So we maintain a discipline approach and these areas are less commoditized. And less exposed to spread compression. You know, when you look at, as an example, the ABS market, which about 10% is made up of private credit, and that's a growing area.

Speaker #7: Infrastructure is really feeling the deployment on the credit side related to the 3Ds well. The megatrends that we've seeing: real estate and opportunistic are also finding opportunities with bad capital structures and a growing need for tailored financings, which is a big driver.

Speaker #7: So overall, we feel very good about deploying these opportunities with very strong discipline and attractive risk-adjusted returns where we're not getting caught up in spread compression, which is valuable for all types our investors including the tional retail market.

Speaker #6: Very helpful. Thank you.

Speaker #2: Thank you. Our next question will come from Bart Desarski from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker #9: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to follow up on the fundraising commentary just specifically diving into the Evergreen private equity strategy.

Speaker #9: So given your position within the retail channel and the strengths you called out there, how are you thinking about, you know, if we see success on the PE Evergreen fundraise, what that could mean for BBU, in terms of maybe going into an Evergreen structure?

Speaker #9: Thanks.

Speaker #4: There is no doubt that we view the, semi-liquid private Evergreen PE strategy as complementary and additive to our product suite within private equity. we were able to leverage our existing positions in order to seed that strategy.

Speaker #4: We think that will put it in a position to launch with success and grow faster but the reality is having more products that can meet more different investment types and investor needs will allow us to do more transactions in the space.

Speaker #4: The other point that we would highlight is our approach to private equity. Which is very much focused on high-quality industrial and services business, strong cash generation, less focused on growth or significantly leveraged private equity strategies.

Speaker #4: We feel it is incredibly well-suited to the current point in the market and also incredibly well-suited for the growing number of investors that are looking to get access to private equity exposure, whether that be retail investors or potentially in the future things like 401(k) accounts.

Speaker #9: Thank ou.

Speaker #2: Thank you. Our next question will come from Kenneth Worthington from JP Morgan, your line is open.

Speaker #10: Hi, good morning. I wanted to follow up on Sherilyn's retirement question. You highlighted the 401(k) opportunity specifically in your shareholder letter and the prepared remarks as part of that retirement opportunity.

Speaker #10: Is the 401 channel something specifically that Brookfield wants to pursue? And if so, what is your approach to pursuing this? There seems to be a lot of different angles that one could take, whether it's target date funds, advisor manager accounts, record keepers.

Speaker #10: So how are you thinking about it if, in fact, you are going to go after that channel? And if so, is partnership something that you feel is important to success here?

Speaker #4: We'll clear. We absolutely expect to go after this opportunity and at this point, we would look to do so across all channels. Piggybacking on the previous question and our comments, in the script and on the letter, we believe the most important thing for success here is having the right products.

Such shifts need to be agreed and approved by a regulator and and that is no different in the situation of just as as any of the other similar transactions. We've done in the past. So we would expect that process, uh, to take place at some point in in, in 2026. Um, in terms of, uh, the opportunity to then, uh, increase allocation to to private funds. Um, if that is indeed approved by the regulator, as we are seeing in, in our other insurance portfolios, uh, at that point, it becomes an incremental process over time. Um, we have a little bit of a denominator effect in in trying to measure that because the base of assets keeps growing up the amount that we've been transferring into our private funds continues to be at a low percentage, but we are seeing that uh, increase and I would say anytime we acquire a, a, a, a new portfolio. It's generally

Uh, a period of somewhere between 2 to 5 years, to make that shift.

Thank you.

And our next question will come from Dean Wilkinson from CIBC your line is now open.

Uh, thank you, and good morning. Um,

Just a quick question around the, uh, base shelf that was filed last night, given your Current financial positioning and liquidity, could we, perhaps read into that document? That there are acquisition opportunities, that, uh, may come to the Forefront over the next 12 months or so that that, uh, could be additive to um, uh your, your fee bearing Capital that perhaps we haven't considered at this point.

Our focus really is around making sure we can generate the liquidity, um, in order to support the business. So we've got $1.5 billion as of the quarter end, um, and so we're in a very strong position. But we will continue accessing the bond market, um, in order to support the growth of our business because, uh, we still have a lot of opportunities with the partner managers, which we talked about that $250 million of F. And then, of course, seeding additional strategies. We've had such strong success with our complementary strategies, and we see a lot more, uh, uh, on the product launch side as well as just newer initiatives that we're looking at. So from that standpoint, that is what you're really seeing, uh.

In that shelf uh, in terms of Acquisitions, we're always opportunistic but there's nothing that we need to do. Um and so it really is just an opportunity to play from that perspective.

Great. Thanks. Adley

Thank you.

And our next question will come from Vikram Gandhi from HSBC. Your line is open.

Hi morning, everybody. Hope you can hear me. All right. Um, I'm going to do a part of

Perhaps starting with um you know, the changes in corporated in the big beautiful bill I I I wondered if you could share your thoughts on how these changes around tax breaks for renewable projects could possibly be back to your deployment and exits in that area.

So, in terms of our renewable business, there are three points that we would like to make. First, um,

Our our renewable strategy at this point, we are confident that we can save Harbor or secure the the the Legacy tax credit treatment for the entirety of our Advanced stage. Uh, us Renewables pipeline. Uh, that would be 0.1. Um, 2, well the, um,

Changes in the 1, big beautiful bill did, uh, lead to an accelerated retirement, uh, of those tax credits. Um, it does leave a window for those projects that are either already under construction or set to start construction in the next 12 months to receive the legacy tax, uh, treatment, and we feel that opportunity. Um,

Lends itself, best to the largest platforms that have access to Capital and centralized procurement, uh, programs to get those Advanced stage uh, Pro projects started. Um, and we're certainly the leader in the space. And then the third thing, I would say beyond our Renewables, uh, business. We do receive tax credits, uh across

Ments. We have at Brookfield but some of our Advanced manufacturing nuclear Hydro batteries. Uh, all of that was well protected, uh, under the bill and and therefore, we are certainly uh, 1 of the biggest beneficiaries.

Okay. That's that's very helpful. The the other 1, if I met um, was on a comment made, um, at the financial times, Global Insurance Summit by the bws CEO. Suggesting uh, the private credit trade was kind of overcrowded, just just curious if you could provide some context around that comment and where do bam and bws. You know, where are the 2 companies thinking about the asset allocation on incremental AUM, especially once they just group deal is concluded.

Yes, so so well, I'll add some clarification around that. Um, when we think of again about a core competencies in credit, it is around real assets, asset tax, finance and opportunistic. So these are the markets that we play and we have a competitive Advantage, um, where we are less inclined to spend a lot of our time is around the sponsored direct lending. And, and so that's what, uh, that articles referring to because it's more commoditized, a lot of bread, compression and we're seeing better risk adjusted returns from the core competencies that I laid out. Uh, so we are very active in that space. We are growing. We're we're doing a lot of Investments.

And those areas and we'll continue given the the pipeline of opportunities that I mentioned earlier.

That's great. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And I am showing no further questions from our phone lines and I like to turn the conference back over to Jason fooks for any further. Closing, remarks

Okay, great. Thanks for everyone's participation. If you have any additional questions on today's release, please feel free to contact me directly. Thank you, everyone, and have a good day.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.