Brookfield Names Anuj Ranjan CEO Of $140 Billion Private Equity Arm
Brookfield Asset Management has appointed Anuj Ranjan as the new chief executive officer of its private equity business as the Canadian investment giant seeks to scale up the unit amid a challenging period for the broader buyout industry.
(Bloomberg) -- Brookfield Asset Management has appointed Anuj Ranjan as the new chief executive officer of its private equity business as the Canadian investment giant seeks to scale up the unit amid a challenging period for the broader buyout industry.
Ranjan will replace Cyrus Madon, who is taking on a new role as executive chairman of private equity and will continue to be actively involved in the group, which manages about $140 billion in assets globally. The Canadian firm wants to expand private equity to the same scale as its other flagship businesses, Ranjan said in an interview.
“While we are already a significant private equity investor, there is a real opportunity in front of us to meaningfully scale and be one of the largest in the world,” said Ranjan, who was most recently the president of the buyout business. “In most of the businesses that we are in — whether it is infrastructure, real estate or energy transition — we are already among the top investors globally.”
Brookfield’s broader private equity business includes its flagship buyout strategy Brookfield Capital Partners, its special investments business that can do debt or equity deals and a secondaries business that the Toronto-based firm acquired last year from Deutsche Bank AG’s asset management unit. The business also includes the listed unit Brookfield Business Partners as well as some of the firm’s partnerships like the one with Sequoia Heritage for a business focused on secondary and structured capital solutions in the technology and venture capital space.
In a quiet spell for buyout firms over the past year, Brookfield has been among the most active, agreeing to multibillion-dollar deals for companies including US annuity provider American Equity Investment Life Holding Co. and Middle Eastern payments processor Network International Holdings Plc. The firm raised $12 billion for its largest ever private equity fund last year amid a challenging fundraising environment.
“During periods of market dislocation, as we are seeing today, our clients and partners are looking for firms that can offer a broad suite of products and have global reach,” Ranjan said. “Brookfield has always grown during periods like this when liquidity is scarce and companies are focused on cash flows and profitability.”
The firm is seeing opportunities to further expand in financial infrastructure after the £2.2 billion ($2.8 billion) Network International deal and is also seeking to take advantage of the market downturn by investing through hybrid instruments, which have a mix of debt and equity involved, Ranjan said. The firm wants to expand its private equity business further in regions like Middle East and India, where it has been an active investor in recent years, the executive said.
Brookfield is exploring raising separate pools of capital to invest in the Middle East as the firm seeks to bolster its presence in the region, Bloomberg News reported in October.
The firm is in talks to invest in Dubai-based GEMS Education, one of the world’s largest private school operators, people familiar with the matter said in January. In India, an affiliate of Brookfield Asset Management agreed to buy American Tower Corp’s operations in the country in a deal worth about $2.5 billion in January.
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