Brookfield is a fascinating business. The company — recently renamed Brookfield Corporation after spinning off its asset management business — can trace its origins to a Brazillian utility company founded at the turn of the twentieth century.
These days it is one of the world's largest investors in real estate and despite recent market turmoil CEO Bruce Flatt is still bullish on the sector.
“Look, we've been in the real estate business a long time. We've been through many cycles. We've been through a lot worse than this one, I can tell you. And the only thing I could say is, if you own great, great real estate which we happen to, across the board, and you have it in great places and you run it properly it endures time and just don't ever get in a situation where you have to sell it,” he said last week in an interview at the Goldman Sachs 2022 US Financial Services Conference.
“And we're well financed across our whole book. We have great real estate. And what I can tell you is high-quality real estate both retail office, industrial all of the food groups, hotels, today are in excellent shape.”
Brookfield’s investments in hospitality haven’t been as high-profile as say Blackstone but it has acquired a number of key assets in the last couple of years:
- In 2015 it bought Center Parcs
- In September 2021 it bought the four-hotel Selenta chain
Like many other deep-pocketed investors, Flatt is happy to pay a bit more for a quality asset
“The fact is the story has always been: buy the best building on the best corner, pay a little more if you have to and you'll be fine,” he said.