Brookfield Sells Stake In $20B-Plus Property Fund To Insurance Company It Owns
Brookfield’s $102B real estate division has sold an 8% stake in one of the giant property funds it manages to an insurance company under its ownership.
That same insurer has picked up $2.5B in other Brookfield assets in the last two years. Other investors, including Apollo Global Management, KKR and Blackstone, have also bought or partnered with insurance companies in recent years.
Accounts for Brookfield Property Partners show that in 2023, the company issued $1.6B of preferred shares in Brookfield Strategic Real Estate Partners IV to Brookfield Wealth Solutions, an insurance company owned by Brookfield Corporation, the parent company of Brookfield Property, and to the other divisions owned by the Canadian investor in sectors like infrastructure, energy and asset management.
BSREP IV is an opportunity fund that raised $17B of equity in 2021 and 2022.
The preferred shares were convertible, allowing BWS to buy Brookfield Property’s 8% stake in BSREP IV. That conversion took place in October 2024, giving BWS its ownership stake in the fund.
Accounts for Brookfield Property show that BSREP IV had around $25B of assets at the end of 2024 — the value of the investments that are no longer consolidated in Brookfield Property’s accounts as a result of it selling its stake in the fund.
The disposal of part of the fund comes on top of other sales of stakes in individual assets by Brookfield Property to BWS. It sold $695M of assets to BWS in 2023 and $1.8B in 2024, accounts indicate.
“The sales were carried out at arm’s length on market terms at existing valuations and resulted in no gain or loss at the time of transaction,” Brookfield Property said, adding that the sales were “to support the continued scaling of BWS.”
Brookfield declined to comment on the sales.
BSREP IV bought three listed European office companies in 2022 for a combined value of $7B — Alstria in Germany, Befimmo in Belgium and Hibernia in Ireland.
Other completed deals include the $1.6B purchase of Watermark Lodging Trust, a hospitality owner, in 2022.
Two separate capital calls for a total of just over $1B were undertaken for the fund in 2023.
Brookfield Property owns a huge portfolio of global offices and U.S. shopping malls as well as the stakes in funds Brookfield manages.
Accounts for the division showed that its assets were revalued down by $692M in 2024, compared with a $673M fall in 2023. It ended the year with $102B of assets and $51B of debt attached to them.
Net operating income from the portfolio for 2024 was $4.47B, down from $4.54B the prior year.
