Bruce Flatt speaks at the Milken Institute's Global Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2018. Mr. Flatt is succeeded by Connor Teskey as CEO of Brookfield Asset Management but remains head of its parent company.LUCY NICHOLSON/Reuters
Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. BAM-T named Connor Teskey its chief executive officer on Wednesday, following through on a long-expected succession plan for veteran CEO Bruce Flatt.
Mr. Teskey, 38, was made president in 2022 and has run the day-to-day management of the US$1-trillion asset manager since then. His new role as CEO is effective immediately, and he will stay on as CEO of Brookfield’s renewable energy business.
Mr. Flatt became Brookfield’s CEO in 2002 at a similarly young age. He will still chair the asset manager’s board of directors and remain CEO of its parent company, Brookfield Corp. BN-T The company said its strategy will not change.
“I intend to help in any way I can, focusing my energy where I can be most useful – and I will stay fully invested in Brookfield,” Mr. Flatt said in a letter to shareholders on Wednesday.
Mr. Flatt has said publicly that Mr. Teskey would be his successor as CEO as far back as 2024, and Brookfield said its succession process has been under way for four years.
“Over that time, Connor has taken on running virtually everything. So this title change merely matches title to substance,” Mr. Flatt said on a Wednesday conference call.
The promotion puts Mr. Teskey at the head of a group of young executives who are expected to steer Brookfield for the coming decades – even as Mr. Flatt has no plans to step away yet. Mr. Teskey joined Brookfield in 2012 and his rise has been rapid, making him one of the youngest CEOs of a major global asset manager.
Mr. Flatt and Mr. Teskey said they see “a broadly constructive investment environment” to start the year, with powerful trends such as artificial intelligence and digitization driving demand for investment capital.
Brookfield is coming off its best fundraising quarter ever, when the company brought in US$35-billion in the final three months of the year. Most of that – US$23-billion – flowed into the company’s credit business.
That brought its total funds raised for the year to US$112-billion, according to quarterly financial results released Wednesday.
The company said last year that it was aiming to raise US$10-billion for an AI infrastructure fund, with chip maker Nvidia Corp. NVDA-Q and Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund as anchor investors. Mr. Teskey said Wednesday that Brookfield has “secured” US$5-billion so far, and should hit its target and potentially reach US$20-billion including co-investments.
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Mr. Teskey also said Brookfield’s exposure to software companies affected by AI is “very minimal,” one day after share prices for data providers and legal software companies fell sharply over disruption concerns. He said Brookfield mostly focuses on “real assets where we don’t take any technology risk,” such as data centres and energy infrastructure to support AI.
The company made US$13-billion of new investments in the quarter, and US$66-billion over one year, helping boost the base of capital that earns fees by 12 per cent to US$603-billion.
Fourth-quarter profit was US$615-million, or 34 US cents a share, compared with US$680-million, or 42 US cents a share a year earlier.
Fee-related earnings of US$867-million increased 28 per cent year over year. Distributable earnings – a metric used as a proxy for cash earnings that could be paid to shareholders – rose 18 per cent to US$767-million.
Brookfield also increased its quarterly dividend by 15 per cent to 50.25 US cents a share.