Brookfield Corp. plans to build its property and casualty insurance business as it looks to exploit a corner of the in
surance industry in which the firm has a competitive edge and hasn’t been crowded by other private equity players.
The firm is seeking “a relatively low-risk” area of property and casualty insurance “where we can become globall
y dominant and create float to invest into our strategies,” particularly its higher-earning equity strategies, Chief Executive Officer Bruce Flatt said in an interview Tuesday
at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference.
Brookfield is focused on areas “where we have something spec
ial,” including underwriting insurance for real estate construction and warehouses, he said.
Read more: Brookfield Turns Focus to Insurance as Source of Fresh Capital
While annuities remain Brookfield’s largest business within ins
urance, the firm wants to grow the property and casualty insurance business, which currently makes up a small portion of its book.
P/C accounted for just $3.5 billion of equity as of the second quarter, but Brookfield aims to grow that to $30 billion
to $50 billion in the long run by writing policies for real estate construction, industrial warehouses and renewable power facilities.
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The Canadian firm has been aggressively expanding its insurance and wealth business, snapping up comp
anies in the US, pushing into the UK market and, more recently, expanding into Japan’s reinsurance market.
Flatt also said Tuesday that he expects asset sales to accelerate in the US as interest rates drop.
“You’re going to see a lot of more monetizations in the United States and that’s good for us — but it’s also good
for the industry in general,” said Flatt, who’s also the CEO of New York-based Brookfield Asset Management.
Countries in Southeast Asia consistently rank among the most at risk, with the Philippines, Myanmar and Viet
nam among the 10 nations most affected by climate change last year, according to Germanwatch, an independent human rights organization.
Despite those risks, progress toward building climate resiliency in many countries lags other parts of the world
partly because some authorities in Southeast Asia prioritized growth over planning and adaptation efforts, sai
d Helen Nguyen, an environmental engineering professor with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“The development went so fast,” said Nguyen. “That came at the expense of the environment.”
That intersection of politics and failed efforts on climate adaptation is most acute in the Philippines, where p
opulist anger is rising over a multibillion corruption scandal involving government funds for flood mitigation projects.
The scandal triggered a pause on infrastructure projects, dented invest
or confidence, and caused economic growth to tank to its lowest level in four years.
While the impact so far on industrial output from this year’s storms has been limited, the overall damage is still unclear.