>> brookfield holds power, windfarms, ports, and even city skylines. bruce flatt has been at the helm for more than two decades, overseeing more than $900 billion of assets of management. the veteran chief executive is considered a visionary investor with a golden touch. but for him it's all about patients and finding the right investments. >> what you might think of as risky to us, it's not risky because we have been in these businesses for a long time. francine: in this episode of leaders with laqua, i speak to bruce flatt about his secrets of success, the outlook for commercial real estate, and his own future. bruce flatt, thank you so much for coming on leaders. i'm great because i'm speaking to you, brookfield has gone from strength to strength. if i was a martian meeting you for the first time, how would you describe your company?

bruce: we invest in, buy and own the backbone of the global economy. when the water gets delivered to your house, the pipeline that brings different things to your community. the telecom towers that transmit your phone, the data center, the real estate that you live in, it's what we own and build. it's really what drives the economy and you don't often see our name. francine: is that a good or a bad thing? bruce: we are behind the scenes. we are the trillion dollars of assets. we are behind a lot of things in the global economy. francine: do you think it gives you strength? bruce: we just try to be quiet. sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. on balance, it has been good for us. francine: you have been in charge for 22 years. bruce: it seems like a long time when you say it that way. francine: two decades, over two

decades. you have grown the business by so much. what was the most difficult question about how to grow it? bruce: the amazing thing about this business is you are learning every day and the world is changing all the time. but if i went back 22 years or 32 years, what we invested in then and now are very different. data centers didn't exist then. telecom towers were owned by all the phone companies. these are things, the business evolves and the backbone evolves of the economy, so it is a really interesting business to be in because you are always learning. francine: but it is a difficult business, because you don't want to be kodak, right, you don't want to invest in something that goes nowhere. bruce: we are always trying to understand where is the future going, and how do we invest with that? and often it is listening to your counterparties, your clients, your partners, and hearing what they are saying. and what they want to do.

and we are going with them. we are the backbone behind global business. and when they need capital, we fund it. francine: and i think your northstar, as it was, was three d's, right? bruce: look, i would say over time, we are always trying to figure out, what are the things, what are the themes that will drive the world? and today the digitalization of everything, the decarbonization of everything, and the de-globalization of everything, are three, i would say, mega trend themes that are going to be very dominant in investing for the next not the next two or three years, the next 20 to 30 years. francine: geopolitics is, i guess, taking a turn for the worse. how do you keep that trajectory and say look, we will digitize, and interest rates are all over the place, so how do you stay

the course, as it were? bruce: you know, francine, what we try to do is find good countries, go there and stay there. invest in these things, and whether -- governments come and go, interest rates go up or down a little bit, aren't really relevant to these themes in the long-term. you need to make sure you have liquidity. you can fund yourself. and you run good businesses. and that is more important than those general trends, so we are investing for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. francine: so, out of the three d's is digitalization the hardest, because of ai, because we don't really know where we will end up? bruce: i would say digitalization was happening because of cloud computing, and the super tech companies getting into cloud computing. and that was a whole thing going on. the amount of things that go to your ipad every day today -- francine: it is crazy. bruce: it is amazing what has happened in the past 20 years, but now with ai, it is almost exponentially taken it up.

and that's just another tailwind behind this whole sector. it was very strong before the, -- before that. and for the last 5, 7, 10 years, we have been pushing into it, but the ai, what is going on with ai is even more dramatic. the digitalization of everything is being driven by data centers. and just the connectivity of everything. but remember, everyone in the world has, in some way, committed to, "let's have less carbon." it is just transitioning the economy. it's not good or bad or green or black, let's transition to have less carbon. so we are funding that. and the leaders in that today are the technology companies. so a lot of this is being driven by the technology companies to go green. we are one of the largest builders of solar and wind and now batteries, to be able to get carbon out of the system.

whereas years ago we sold power to the grid, today our power is mostly sold to global corporates. francine: and again, you have to take a bet on what kind of technology, or do you have to take a bet on the kind of infrastructure that supports it? bruce: we were doing wind, 15, 18, 20 years ago. we were doing solar 10 years ago, but very small, but only when the cost curves made solar and wind, at the point where they are the most economic way to generate electricity. and at the point of that, you know, if they are the most economic way to do it and they have less carbon, they are going to win. and that is why we are decarbonizing today. because in most countries, this is the lowest-cost energy. francine: but geopolitics must get in the way, right? politicians have to be reelected. they are pro-climate change or

against climate change. how do you not waver? bruce: remember, just to make an important point, in most countries, the lowest cost energy today for electricity is solar and wind. you don't need subsidies. and, when you did need subsidies, politics mattered. today you don't. francine: de-globalization. so this is, what, bringing back onshoring? bruce: all it is is -- i think in covid -- i would say it has always been happening, and in covid, people just learned that we should have production capacity located in many things, located where you use them. so, increasingly, for example, batteries. for cars, for example. they are being used in america and, therefore, there are battery plants getting built in america. and there is enormous need for capital to fund battery plants. there's an enormous need for

semiconductors. there is an enormous need for manufacturing capacity in various locations around the world. and it is just natural that everyone does not want to have all of their manufacturing capacity in one country or place. let's diversify. so, that is just a big theme, which means, it is just a lot of capital. francine: you make it sound very easy, but actually, this has gotten you more than $900 billion in assets under management. [laughs] bruce: it's not easy, but if you have operating people and you keep repeatable, do repeatable things around the world, it gets simpler. it is not easy but it is simpler. i guess that is why we are in business, right? we have been doing this a long time. and everything is not the same, but it's, there are a lot of things that rhyme and therefore, you can learn and continue to grow over time. francine: coming up, bruce flatt on plans to invest in the financial backbone of the global economy. bruce: we think that is the next phase of infrastructure investing. ♪

at morgan stanley, old school hard work meets bold new thinking. to help you see untapped possibilities and relentlessly work with you to make them real. welcome to ameriprise. i'm sam morrison. my brother max recommended you. so, my best friend sophie says you've been a huge help. at ameriprise financial, more than 9 out of 10 of our clients are likely to recommend us. our neighbors, the garcía's, love working with you. because the advice we give is personalized, -hey, john reese, jr. -how's your father doing? to help reach your goals with confidence. my sister's told me so much about you. that's why it's more than advice worth listening to. it's advice worth talking about. ameriprise financial.

francine: infrastructure has been a bright spot in the country is targeting buyout opportunities in the middle east. and it plans to start a pool that invest in financial infrastructure such as payment infrastructure as demand grows. i continue my conversation with bruce flatt did you know in 2002 you wanted to be $1 billion assets under management. bruce: we have been trying to make money for clients in a thoughtful way and the reason we are at the scale we are is that we have been thoughtful and we have earned them a good return and we have not taken a lot of risk. if you can do that over a long period of time, you can compound their investment well to very

large sums of money and that is what is important for this pension investors. they have long durations and they need this type of asset to earn them returns over the long return. francine: you have also gone to credit, how much are you expecting credit to go? bruce: what has happened with regulations in the banking system, it has pushed out balance sheets and the right place where that is being funded from is institutional investors. and therefore, investors like ourselves are continuing to grow our businesses where we are funding these type of products. but, our business is not in competition with the banks but it is in partnership with the banks. as a result of that, i would say it is facilitating the growth of the global financial markets as

opposed to something often people talk about, we are at the wrong time in the cycle, or whatever else it is. this will be growing in happening for a long period of time. francine: how big do you expect? bruce: it's going to get big. this is where most of the capital is at work, sovereign institutional funds. and pensions. these funds is to be 20 and 30 billion, today they are at $300 billion and $1.5 trillion. these are large, large sums of money. they need to put it to work, and it is going to grow for a long period of time. francine: when you look at regions, is it mainly gcc countries? bruce: we invest for people in the -- for the long term try to , earn them good returns by taking moderate risks, and if we can do that, it is all around the world. for you, what you want to do in your portfolio is taking moderate risk and earn a good return. francine: what is moderate risk? you can make it sound easy, but actually, this is a know-how. do you look into -- you are also

quite acquisitive. bruce: yeah. look, i would say in the businesses that we are in, we have more information than most people about what we do. therefore, what you might think of is risky, to us it's not risky. because we have been in these businesses for a long period of time. we have the information of everyone. we know what's getting shipped across the ocean in our containers. we know what is getting booked into the ports in different countries. we know what's traveling on the roads. we know how many people are going into a shopping mall. we know all those things. that just informs us. i would say we have better information to base our decisions than most people. but we are trying to lower the risks by doing that. of course, investing is tough. it's not easy. and, therefore, you are always taking some form of risk. francine: how do you choose what companies you buy?

bruce: thoughtful analysis about what's in the business. proper pricing. when things are up a lot, just wait. and most people invest at the wrong time, because they get excited about what the markets are telling them about business. and therefore, that is usually when we are not investing. and just wait for the time when it will be a little better to invest. francine: i think you have spoken in the past about a possible big acquisition that would be transformational for brookfield. bruce: i would say we are always looking for additions to the business. in 2018, we brought oak tree into our fold, and we have a partnership with the management there. that's been transformative to our credit business. and we're always looking for things like that to continue to build the business and just grow over time. but if not, we just keep

plugging away every day. francine: so it is more partnerships than outright acquisitions, like ultara. this is a different carbon fund. bruce: our transition business. we started, we split off from our main infrastructure business 4.5, four or five years ago, we raised a large first time fund. we just did the first close of our second fund for $10 billion, and then we started an emerging markets business. i would say that is just a split off. all we are trying to do is we informed ourself about transition. we built a team over a long period of time. now our, some people said to us, can you solve emerging markets as opposed to just developed markets? we did not feel like we could put the two in the same fund, so we are creating another fund to do that. some of our clients will come along with us and we are quite

excited about it. francine: is that a template for a possible future kind of spinoffs? bruce: in our private equity business, we have a buyout sponsor business. but we are also doing, we're just in the midst of creating strategy for the middle east, which will be a separate pool of money. we're creating a strategy for financial infrastructure. because we think that is the next, the next phase of infrastructure investing is in the financial backbone of the global economy. and a lot of the world has, been pushing towards financial infrastructure, and it is not appropriate for our infrastructure fund, so we are creating a new pool of money to do that. so, there's a fine line between having too many things and making sure your clients who want to be invested with you in

that type of area have a pool to be able to do it with us. francine: when you look at infrastructure, there is -- consolidation was really the name for the last six months. does that make your job easier or tougher? bruce: look, we were one of the pioneers of infrastructure. francine: the original one. you want to say. [laughs] bruce: going into institutional clients. we were the original because we were in industrial businesses ourselves, and how we got into the infrastructure business, is we decided we didn't like the up and down of many of the industrial businesses we had and mining businesses. but we really liked the backbone infrastructure in these businesses. 20 years ago, we started doing it for institutional clients. at that time, nobody would listen to us and nobody would invest with us. so, it's great that this has become mainstream today. the good news, we're still a leader in it. we have very large funds, in

fact, the largest in the world. and, therefore, we just continue to try to differentiate our investment strategies, and with size, scale, operating people, and the ability to grow in the place as we are. so i think we are -- do others getting stronger help us? probably not. but it doesn't really bother us. and i think there is a place for us to continue to grow in business. francine: coming up, why bruce flatt has faith in the future of commercial real estate. bruce: there is opportunity coming. and if you know what you're doing, you can pick the right assets. there is a great opportunity here. ♪ so i started my own studio. getting a brick—and—mortar in new york is not easy.

chase ink has supported us from studio 1 to studio 3. when you start small you need some big help. and chase ink was that for me. earn up to 5% cash back on business essentials with the chase ink business cash card. make more of what's yours.

francine: from the united states to europe, plunging office valuations are spooking investors, raising fears about a broader contagion. as one of the biggest owners of commercial real estate, brookfield is at the central of the global industry shakeout. but the chief executive bruce flatt, who made his name in real estate, sees opportunities where others see risks. we continue the conversation. commercial real estate. so, a lot of people say this is not the right time. we are going to see a shakeout in commercial real estate. there are opportunities that you see? bruce: look, the next, the next

story is that interest rates are coming down. fundamentals are pretty good in a lot of commercial real estate. of course, there is a tail of some investors that had properties that, for this environment, the fundamentals either do not support it or the financing they have can't be supported, and therefore, those have to get dealt with. so that is a tail that is getting dealt with within the financial system. the fundamentals are actually getting better. interest rates are coming down, which means values are going to improve. but that tail, there is opportunity coming. and if you know what you're doing, you can pick the right assets. there is a great opportunity here. we have done this for a long period of time and we have seen these cycles before, real estate is cyclical. and you can make a lot of money when you pick the inflection point of markets. i remember it in the early

1990's. i remembered it in the early 2000's. i remembered it in 2009, 10, 11, 12. there are points when there's an inflection point, and we are at one of those inflection points. francine: so you are buying. bruce: we are buying. our opportunistic fund, we foreclosed on some loans for multifamily in the u.s. recently. we are very excited about that, and we continue to look at a bunch of things. francine: do you see anything in europe? bruce: absolutely. the biggest, most liquid markets are in the united states. because they are the most liquid, you always find the most opportunities. but in europe, there is less capital, and therefore, there will be opportunities here as well. francine: how do you make a difference between the ones that will get better and the ones

that actually, you should forget? bruce: i would just say it depends on the types of real estate. quality wins always. it always has. it always will. francine: what do you spend most of your time thinking about? bruce: personally, i spend my time, sometimes helping our teams with business. sometimes, i would say about a third with clients, helping them understand what we are doing, where we are going. and a third is just internal people running the organization, i will call it. and, with that, we spend an enormous amount of time building our people, transitioning our people within all of our businesses. and it is just, it is not something that happens once. it's happening all the time. and our whole goal is, our culture of our place is, bring people up that are very young, give them opportunities that they will never get anywhere

else. grow them throughout the organization. make sure they are entrepreneurial, hard-working, and want to win. and if you have that, you have a great culture in a company, and that is sort of where we spend all of, a huge amount of our time trying to build within the organization. francine: bring them up to test them or just to make them learn? bruce: look, if we can bring them up to take on roles, and eventually, eventually i will become an executive chairman. and i will still be around. but somebody else will -- francine: will you retire? bruce: i will become an executive chairman at some point in time. and what that means is i am here to help mentor young people, help with business development, look after clients that can be helpful to the overall organization, but at some point in time, this is a hard business. we are in 30 countries.

we have lots of people. it is better to have younger people grow the business. i took over in my early 30's. and i am probably slower today than i was then. not that i have slow down, but i am slower today. and at some point in time, it is the right thing to give the people those roles, so we are continually evolving our organization in that way. francine: are you going anywhere anytime soon? bruce: no. francine: [laughs] bruce, is this the biggest mistake, actually, for politicians and chief executives, is, is staying on for too long, or is it, is leadership in 2024 different to what it was in the early 2000's? bruce: you know, i think it depends on the organization. some organizations fit one way,

some fit another. i am not suggesting our culture is what works for everybody else. but we have a culture where our elders stay around for long periods of time to help. and our young people get opportunities which they would not otherwise get if the elders stayed in place in a full-time role. and that is what we do. maybe it does not work for everyone, and that's ok. francine: bruce flatt, thank you so much for joining us today. ♪ hi202 pounds on golo.e lost so the first time i ever seen a golo advertisement, i said, "yeah, whatever. there's no way this works like this." and threw it to the side. a couple weeks later, i seen it again after getting not so pleasant news from my physician. i was 424 pounds, and my doctor was recommending weight loss surgery. to avoid the surgery, i had to make a change. so i decided to go with golo and it's changed my life. when i first started golo and taking release, my cravings, they went away. and i was so surprised.

you feel that your body is working and functioning the way it should be and you feel energized. golo has improved my life in so many ways. i'm able to stand and actually make dinner. i'm able to clean my house. i'm able to do just simple tasks that a lot of people call simple, but when you're extremely heavy they're not so simple. golo is real and when you take release and follow the plan, it works.

yvonne: welcome back to the china show. markets are closed in china and hong kong today and tomorrow for the festival. they will reopen on friday. it's a weird week. we continue to see this rally resume. when you have the dollar dropped against almost every currency except for the end, that's a good signal for people to continue to buy equities in tokyo. david: back 40,000 on your screens. the yen -- listen, it has weekend as the dollar continued to fall. 15165. we did get extremely close to that 150 to handle. again, nothing much as far as intervention as far as japan is concerned. at least, there's a separate but similar conversation to be had when you talk about the chinese currency. we are getting extremely close or we did get extremely close owing into this weekend