Brookfield Asset Management Q4 FY25 earnings call BAM

Brookfield announced that Connor Teskey has been appointed CEO of Brookfield Asset Management as part of a long-term succession process begun four years ago when he became President. Bruce Flatt remains Chair of the BAM Board and CEO of Brookfield Corporation. Management characterized it as matching title to substance with 'no real transition,' since Teskey already runs virtually everything. Flatt emphasized Brookfield Corporation's substantial economic interest in BAM's success and said he will remain fully invested and involved.

2025 was a record year across raise-invest-monetize. The firm raised $112B of capital, deployed a record $66B into high-quality real assets and essential-service businesses, and monetized $50B of equity at strong returns. Fee-bearing capital rose 12% to over $600B ($603B), FRE reached a record $3B (+22%) and DE was $2.7B (+14%). Management stressed that DE is almost entirely fee-based and long-duration, reinforcing earnings durability across cycles.

Q4 was the strongest fundraising quarter ever at $35B across 50+ strategies. Nearly 90% of FY fundraising came from non-flagship strategies, underscoring platform breadth. Two flagships reached final close — the fifth real-estate vintage and the second global-transition vintage — both the largest in their series and above target. In 2026 the firm will fundraise across ~60 strategies versus just 4 a decade ago, and no single business contributes more than one-third of fee-related revenues.

Brookfield launched a $100B global AI infrastructure program anchored by a $10B-target inaugural fund ($5B committed), aiming to deploy >$100B across the full value chain — land, power, data centers, compute. Management framed electricity supply, not capital or demand, as the true bottleneck, differentiating via 'bring your own power' (Bloom Energy for speed, Westinghouse nuclear longer-term, behind-the-meter storage/renewables). Growth is driven by more, larger data centers and an expanding investable wallet (rack-and-shell plus chips, servers, grid, interconnect), all backstopped by long-term take-or-pay offtakes from hyperscaler and sovereign credits (Sweden, France, Qatar).

Management sees a structural shift as individuals gain access to private assets through retirement and long-duration savings vehicles across three buckets: retail/high-net-worth, insurance/annuity holders, and 401(k)/DC. The wealth channel grew ~40%+ in 2025, reaching ~70,000 clients. On DC, Brookfield is co-developing target-date sleeves with leading providers and expects supportive regulatory guidance 'later this week' to catalyze reviews of alternatives in 401(k)s. Management stressed disciplined, prudent capital-raising to protect return consistency, plus incremental 2026 steps on brand awareness and credit product breadth.

Credit was a record Q4 at $23B raised, led by real-asset and asset-backed finance and the insurance channel (~$9B from Brookfield Wealth Solutions). Combined with the fully integrated Oaktree partnership, Brookfield is assembling one of the most comprehensive global credit platforms — real-asset credit, ABF, opportunistic and insurance-oriented strategies. The pending acquisition of the remaining 26% of Oaktree and the Just Group close will expand the asset-management mandate. Next quarter the firm will gross up partner-manager revenues and expenses (currently only their FRE is shown) for transparency — no impact to FRE or DE.

Brookfield operates an asset-light profile. In November it issued $1B of senior unsecured notes ($600M 5-year at 4.65%, $400M 10-year at 5.3%) and ended the year with $3B of corporate liquidity, part earmarked to fund BAM's share of the remaining 26% of Oaktree. Total debt is ~$2.5B, with ~$130B of uncalled capital that will convert to fee-bearing capital over the next few years. Management expects to be much less active on balance-sheet initiatives in 2026 than in 2025.

Management expects 2026 to be at or above long-term targets, with growth driven by three already-funded initiatives adding >$200M of annualized FRE (Oaktree, Just Group, Q4 credit managers), a step-change in fundraising led by PE and infrastructure (all strategies in market concurrently), and continued credit scaling. The quarterly dividend was raised 15% to $2.01 annualized, supported by high-certainty forecasting, with a ~95% long-term payout target and carry expected as a future second leg of growth.