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Reached by the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation, Gonzalez said that in the spring of 2009 she uncovered a series of payments to São Paulo municipal officials aimed at obtaining approval of expansion projects at four different malls. Specifically she alleges they were designed to cover up the real estate fund's lack of compliance with a series of pre-expansion mandates from the São Paulo building approval department designed to address a potential increase in traffic flow. When she discovered requests to approve large payments to holding companies she had never heard of, she investigated further and found municipal officials had set up entities to receive payments from the real estate fund. Gonzalez alleges that when confronted her unit and corporate supervisors, including Steven J. Douglas, then the head of the Brookfield Asset Management's international property portfolio, with news she felt sure would outrage them, she was told repeatedly, "This is the way of doing business in Brazil." The angriest they got about the bribes, according to her, was when they chastised her for discussing sensitive fund business in an email. (In reporting on the claims of Gonzalez, the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation examined a series of emails between Gonzalez and her supervisors, other internal Brookfield documents and a letter written to the SEC by her lawyers.) |
Reached by the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation, Gonzalez said that in the spring of 2009 she uncovered a series of payments to São Paulo municipal officials aimed at obtaining approval of expansion projects at four different malls. Specifically she alleges they were designed to cover up the real estate fund's lack of compliance with a series of pre-expansion mandates from the São Paulo building approval department designed to address a potential increase in traffic flow. When she discovered requests to approve large payments to holding companies she had never heard of, she investigated further and found municipal officials had set up entities to receive payments from the real estate fund. Gonzalez alleges that when confronted her unit and corporate supervisors, including Steven J. Douglas, then the head of the Brookfield Asset Management's international property portfolio, with news she felt sure would outrage them, she was told repeatedly, "This is the way of doing business in Brazil." The angriest they got about the bribes, according to her, was when they chastised her for discussing sensitive fund business in an email. (In reporting on the claims of Gonzalez, the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation examined a series of emails between Gonzalez and her supervisors, other internal Brookfield documents and a letter written to the SEC by her lawyers.) |
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Dismissed in April 2010, Gonzalez filed a labor grievance shortly thereafter in São Paulo. Brookfield Asset Management filed a lawsuit against her in 2011, alleging she had engaged in embezzlement; she says the charges are nothing more than "a complete fabrication to make me seem like a criminal." |
Dismissed in April 2010, Gonzalez filed a labor grievance shortly thereafter in São Paulo. Brookfield Asset Management filed a lawsuit against her in 2011, alleging she had engaged in embezzlement; she says the charges are nothing more than "a complete fabrication to make me seem like a criminal." |
||
Asked about Gonzalez and her charges, Brookfield Asset Management spokesman Andrew Willis said, among other statements, "Notwithstanding the suspect source of the allegations, Brookfield conducted an investigation into these matters. The investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing by Brookfield or any of its employees."<ref>Boyd, Roddy. [http://seekingalpha.com/article/1847731-brookfields-looking-glass-world?source=email_rt_article_readmore"Brookfield's Looking-Glass World"],’’[[Seeking Alpha]]’’, 19Nov2013 Retrieved 24Nov2013</ref> |
Asked about Gonzalez and her charges, Brookfield Asset Management spokesman Andrew Willis said, among other statements, "Notwithstanding the suspect source of the allegations, Brookfield conducted an investigation into these matters. The investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing by Brookfield or any of its employees."<ref>Boyd, Roddy. [http://seekingalpha.com/article/1847731-brookfields-looking-glass-world?source=email_rt_article_readmore"Brookfield's Looking-Glass World"],’’[[Seeking Alpha]]’’, 19Nov2013 Retrieved 24Nov2013{{rs?}}</ref> |
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====General Growth Properties==== |
====General Growth Properties==== |
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Few companies bear a structure as complex as Brookfield's: Analyzing the company's organizational tree and its web of entities, stakes, partnerships and operating companies is to behold the work of gifted accountants and lawyers. Similarly, Brookfield's financial filings are mind-boggling in their complexity. |
Few companies bear a structure as complex as Brookfield's: Analyzing the company's organizational tree and its web of entities, stakes, partnerships and operating companies is to behold the work of gifted accountants and lawyers. Similarly, Brookfield's financial filings are mind-boggling in their complexity. |
||
Brookfield bears a pyramidal control structure, a design that U.S. regulators have frowned on since the 1930s. Simply stated, this type of structure lets a small group of shareholders exercise control of a business without putting a proportionate amount of capital at risk. (This kind of corporate structure is often depicted by a pyramid; hence the name. It is legal and to varying degrees common in Europe, Asia and Canada. But it should not be confused with a pyramid scheme.) |
Brookfield bears a pyramidal control structure, a design that U.S. regulators have frowned on since the 1930s. Simply stated, this type of structure lets a small group of shareholders exercise control of a business without putting a proportionate amount of capital at risk. (This kind of corporate structure is often depicted by a pyramid; hence the name. It is legal and to varying degrees common in Europe, Asia and Canada. But it should not be confused with a pyramid scheme.) |
||
Those in the founding group can leverage their capital to effectively control a broad network of assets or investments; often members of this group do so by creating a holding company with the right to appoint half or more of the board of directors of the parent company. In turn, these directors can oversee a series of acquisitions using the company's capital, most of which belongs to other people. For the shareholders outside of the control group - even if their capital is doing most of the buying - their influence upon the board of directors is perpetually limited, no matter how much they have invested.<ref>Boyd, Roddy. [http://seekingalpha.com/article/1263461-the-paper-world-of-brookfield-asset-management?source=email_rt_mc_focus_2"The Paper World Of Brookfield Asset Management"],’’[[Seeking Alpha]]’’, 11Mar2013 Retrieved 1Nov2013</ref> |
Those in the founding group can leverage their capital to effectively control a broad network of assets or investments; often members of this group do so by creating a holding company with the right to appoint half or more of the board of directors of the parent company. In turn, these directors can oversee a series of acquisitions using the company's capital, most of which belongs to other people. For the shareholders outside of the control group - even if their capital is doing most of the buying - their influence upon the board of directors is perpetually limited, no matter how much they have invested.<ref>Boyd, Roddy. [http://seekingalpha.com/article/1263461-the-paper-world-of-brookfield-asset-management?source=email_rt_mc_focus_2"The Paper World Of Brookfield Asset Management"],’’[[Seeking Alpha]]’’, 11Mar2013 Retrieved 1Nov2013{{rs?}}</ref> |
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Last year more than $1.3 billion in fair value changes were flowed into Brookfield Property Partners $2.7 billion in net income, according to its 2012 annual report. In other words, nearly 50 percent of its profits were attributed to accounting entries-existing only on paper-that had nothing to do with leasing or selling properties at a profit. |
Last year more than $1.3 billion in fair value changes were flowed into Brookfield Property Partners $2.7 billion in net income, according to its 2012 annual report. In other words, nearly 50 percent of its profits were attributed to accounting entries-existing only on paper-that had nothing to do with leasing or selling properties at a profit. |
||
So here's where a set of truly independent set of eyes reviewing Brookfield Property's portfolio could mean something beyond an abstract legal concept, perhaps a check and balance. Indeed an independent review could result in a different opinion of the value of Brookfield Property's billions of dollars of assets and perhaps a substantial change to its bottom line. |
So here's where a set of truly independent set of eyes reviewing Brookfield Property's portfolio could mean something beyond an abstract legal concept, perhaps a check and balance. Indeed an independent review could result in a different opinion of the value of Brookfield Property's billions of dollars of assets and perhaps a substantial change to its bottom line. |
||
After all, if Brookfield Properties excluded fair value changes from its filing and reported earnings of $1.4 billion, the subsidiary might have warranted a sharply different stock price.<ref>Boyd, Roddy. [http://seekingalpha.com/article/1847731-brookfields-looking-glass-world?source=email_rt_article_readmore"Brookfield's Looking-Glass World"],’’[[Seeking Alpha]]’’, 19Nov2013 Retrieved 24Nov2013</ref> |
After all, if Brookfield Properties excluded fair value changes from its filing and reported earnings of $1.4 billion, the subsidiary might have warranted a sharply different stock price.<ref>Boyd, Roddy. [http://seekingalpha.com/article/1847731-brookfields-looking-glass-world?source=email_rt_article_readmore"Brookfield's Looking-Glass World"],’’[[Seeking Alpha]]’’, 19Nov2013 Retrieved 24Nov2013{{rs?}}</ref> |
||
== References == |
== References == |
Revision as of 19:13, 13 December 2013
Company type | Public |
---|---|
TSX: BAM.A NYSE: BAM Euronext: BAMA S&P/TSX 60 component | |
Industry | Asset Management |
Founded | 1899 |
Founder | William Mackenzie, Frederick Stark Pearson |
Headquarters | , |
Area served | Global |
Key people | Frank J. McKenna[1] (Chairman of the Board) J. Bruce Flatt[2] (CEO) |
Services | Financial services |
Revenue | $18.7 bn (2012)[3] |
$1,970.00 mn (2012)[4] | |
Total assets | $183 bn (2013)[4] |
Total equity | $44.3 bn (2012)[3] |
Number of employees | 24,000[3] |
Subsidiaries | Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners Brookfield Property Partners[5] Brookfield Canada Office Properties[6] Brookfield Incorporações[4] Brookfield Office Properties Inc. Brookfield Residential Properties Inc. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP Brookfield Real Estate Services[7] |
Website | www.brookfield.com |
Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is a Canadian asset management company that manages a global portfolio of total assets under management of $181 billion, invested on behalf of clients.[8] The firm's assets are concentrated in property, renewable power, infrastructure and private equity.[8]
The company was founded in 1899 as a builder and operator of electricity and transport infrastructure in Brazil; the company's earlier name of "Brascan" reflected this history ("Brasil" + "Canada").[9] The company provided electricity and tram services in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and the Brazilian side after the split is still known as "Light", short for Brazilian Traction, Light and Power Co. Ltd. [10] Over the next century, the company expanded and it is now an owner and operator of more than $180 billion of real assets, with 24,000 employees in over 100 offices in 20 different countries.[3] The company's major public subsidiaries include Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners, Brookfield Property Partners, Brookfield Canada Office Properties, Brookfield Incorporações, Brookfield Office Properties, Brookfield Residential Properties Inc., Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, and Brookfield Real Estate Services.[5][6][4][7]
Assets
- Property: $105 billion[4]
- Power: $20 billion[4]
- Infrastructure: $26 billion[4]
- Public Securities: $20 billion[4]
- Private Equity: $33 billion[4]
- Development Activities: $7 billion[3]
The company's asset management offerings include alternative-type investments, structured financial products, traditional fixed income and equities and finite-risk reinsurance.[11] Its financial services group, Brookfield Financial, provides advisory services, acquisition financing, bridge loans and project financing.[12] In addition, Brookfield Asset Management owns a significant stake in a real estate services company offering home relocations, property appraisals, move-in services and home transaction closing services, and capital market services, including financial advisory, securities underwriting, and property brokerage.[13] Brookfield Asset Management invests through public, listed companies and through private funds. The company's institutional clients mainly include governments, sovereign wealth funds, pension plans, institutions, corporations and high-net-worth individuals.[14][15]
The company's corporate headquarters are located in Toronto and New York City.
Brookfield has $25 billion of assets under management in Canada, $113 billion invested in the United States, $16 billion invested in Australia and Asia, $21 billion in South America and $9 billion in the UK, Western Europe and the Middle East.[4] Its major real estate investments include the Brookfield Place (formerly known as the World Financial Center) in New York, the First Canadian Place in Toronto, the Bank of America Plaza in Los Angeles, and Houston's Allen Center complex.[16][17][18] Other investments include Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, Transelec and Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners.
Brookfield's infrastructure assets include a major Australian railway and coal terminal and several European ports.[19][20][21] It used to control such major companies as Noranda Inc., Falconbridge Limited, John Labatt, Royal Trust, MacMillan Bloedel and London Life.[22]
Management
Mr. James Bruce Flatt, 48, is Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer. Bruce was appointed to this position in February 2002 after having served as Chief Executive Officer of Brookfield Properties since 2000.[22][23] He was trained as an accountant at Clarkson, Gordon and Company, which is now part of Ernst & Young.[18] His 2012 basic compensation was 5,017,909.[2]
Mr. Flatt is Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer of the corporation and on behalf of the corporation is the Chairman and a director of General Growth Properties Inc. Mr. Flatt previously served as a Board Member to Fraser Papers and Norband Inc. Mr. Flatt holds a Business degree from the University of Manitoba.[18]
History
- 1899: The São Paulo Railway, Light and Power Company was founded by William Mackenzie, Frederick Stark Pearson and others (the word "Railway" would later be changed to "Tramway")
- 1904: The Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Company was founded by Mackenzie's group[24]
- 1912: Brazilian Traction, Light and Power Company Limited is incorporated in Toronto as a public company to develop hydro-electric power operations and other utility services in Brazil, becoming a holding company for the two previous companies[25]
- 1916: Great Lakes Power Company Limited is incorporated to provide hydro-electric power in Sault Ste. Marie and the Algoma District in Ontario[26]
- 1966: Brazilian Traction, Light and Power Company Limited changes its name to Brazilian Light and Power Company Limited
- 1969: Brazilian Light and Power Company Limited changes its name to Brascan Limited (BL)[25]
- 1979: the company's Brazilian assets are transferred to Brazilian ownership (e.g., Eletropaulo and Light S.A.), the company meanwhile having diversified to other areas[25]
Recent history and Transactions
In 2005, the company changed its name to Brookfield Asset Management (BAM). As part of a number of purchases in 2007, Brookfield acquired Multiplex Group construction company for $6.1 billion and renamed it Brookfield Multiplex. It also acquired Longview Fibre Company, expanding its timberlands platform to 2.5 million acres (10,000 km²). In 2008, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners was spun out of the holding company, and subsequently merged with Australia's Prime Infrastructure in a $1 billion transaction. In 2010, Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners was launched as an exchange-listed global renewable power company, with a portfolio of hydroelectric and wind power plants in Canada, the United States and Brazil. Also in 2010, Brookfield led a successful restructuring of General Growth Properties, the second largest owner of U.S. shopping malls, out of bankruptcy after rebuffing Simon Property Group's attempt to acquire GGP.[23] In 2011, the company increased its share of General Growth Properties to 38%.[27] By 2012, Brookfield's stake in GGP grew to 42% which prompted investor activist William Ackman to request that GGP create a special committee unaffiliated with Brookfield to consider a sale to Simon.[28] On Dec. 31, 2012, Pershing Square agreed to sell a portfolio of its stake in GGP to Brookfield and struck a four-year agreement to be a passive investor in the shopping mall company.[29]
In 2012, the company announced plans to spin off its global property holdings to shareholders in Brookfield Asset Management by distributing units in a new entity, Brookfield Property Partners.[30] In June 2012, Brookfield Office Properties announced plans to acquire a portfolio of three office buildings and a development site in the City of London for $829 million from Hammerson Inc., a British real estate company focused on retail developments. In July 2012, Brookfield and Spanish toll road operator Abertis announced plans to acquire a toll road network in Brazil. At the same time, Brookfield acquired full control of toll road assets in Chile. In December, 2012, Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners agreed to acquire a portfolio of 19 hydroelectric power stations in Maine from Nextera Energy Resources LLC for $760 million.[31] On April 26, 2013, Brookfield Office Properties made an offer for MPG Office Trust Inc. and announced plans to create a new $1.15 billion fund that would hold seven MPG and Brookfield office buildings in Los Angeles.[32] In June 2013, a Brookfield private equity fund acquired two Canadian refrigeration facilities, in Toronto and Calgary, from Millard Refrigerated Services, launching a new national company, Brookfield Cold Storage.[33] In June 2013, Brookfield also announced two separate transactions totaling $3.65 billion that saw the sale of its Longview Timber unit to Weyerhauser for $2.65 billion, and the sale of Longview Fibre Paper and Packaging to Kapstone Paper and packaging for $1 billion. Brookfield purchased the companies in 2007 with $1 billion of equity.[34] In commenting on the transaction, Kapstone chairman and CEO Roger Stone said: "The Longview team orchestrated a transformation that is truly, in my experience, the most amazing that I've actually ever seen in my 55 years in the industry." [35] In July, 2013, the New York Times ran an article by short seller Carson Block of Muddy Waters LCC that cited Brookfield as one of a number of companies that had miscalculated the risks of investing in Brazil.[36]
In August 2013, Brookfield Property Partners, acquired Industrial Developments International, an Atlanta-based owner of distribution facilities, from Japanese construction company Kajima Corp. in a $1.1 billion transaction.[37]
Controversies
Birch Mountain class action
The Birch Mountain class action lawsuit arose out of allegations that a Brookfield affiliate used its $31.5 million convertible debenture position to transfer assets from Birch Mountain Resources.[38] In a process supervised by the Alberta courts, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was appointed receiver of Birch Mountain Resources in November 2008 at the request of Tricap Partners Ltd., after Birch Mountain had defaulted on its debts. The assets included nearly 1 billion tonnes of limestone reserves, along with permits and leases for limestone and other minerals covering over 700,000 additional acres. The assets were transferred to Tricap Partners Ltd, now operating under the Hammerstone Corporation, a subsidiary of Brookfield Special Situations Group, for approximately $50 million.[39] The assets from the Hammerstone Project were valued at over $1.6 billion in an independent NI 43-101 Technical Report conducted by AMEC in 2006.[40] A group called Birch Mountain Shareholders for Justice filed a lawsuit against Brookfield Asset Management on September 22, 2010 with the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario, Canada. The lawsuit challenges the acquisition and transfer of assets from a public company, Birch Mountain Resources, to the Hammerstone Corporation.[41]
Brookfield and the Birch Mountain group went to court in 2011 to determine if the case should be heard in Alberta or Ontario. The defendant, Brookfield, filed a motion that the plaintiff lacked jurisdiction in Ontario with the Superior Court of Justice. the court agreed with Brookfield.[42] In November, 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear an appeal of the jursidictional issue, and awarded costs to Brookfield. Based on this decision, the Birch Mountain group amended their Statement of Claim and served/filed Brookfield/Tricap in the Court of the Queen's Bench of Alberta on July 25th, 2013 in Calgary.
The Hammerstone Corporation is operating the quarry which announced a new business contract in May 2012.[43]
Kerzner lawsuit
In January 2012, two investors in a loan with Brookfield filed a lawsuit in Delaware asking that the court restrain a Brookfield - Kerzner International deal from being closed.[44] In the lawsuit, the investors allege that Brookfield engaged in "brazen self-dealing" and collusion with junior lender PCCP and servicer Wells Fargo to complete the deal in violation of the loan agreement.[45] The court granted a temporary injunction pending a hearing, and according to Brookfield senior vice president of communications and media, Andrew Willis, the firm cancelled its offer to acquire the property.[46] According to Willis, Brookfield decided to walk away after a Delaware judge issued the injunction.[45] The lawsuit was a negotiating tactic on the part of the two investors, and they subsequently agreed to a restructuring that allowed Brookfield to acquire the property.[47]
São Paulo, Brazil
In 2012, Brazilian authorities announced that they were investigating allegations that a managing partner at Brookfield bribed São Paulo building officials. The bribes reportedly totaled $789,851. Silvio Antonio Marques, a São Paulo state prosecutor confirmed the civil and criminal investigations to the Wall Street Journal and added that the reporting individual also provided documentation of the misconduct by Brookfield employees. A former Brookfield employee, who is being sued by Brookfield for embezzlement and is being investigated by Brazilian authorities, reported the alleged bribes to both the authorities in Brazil and to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.[48] Brazilian authorities say they are questioning a company controlled by Brookfield Asset Management as part of an investigation into allegations that São Paulo officials engaged in extortion. In the continuing SEC inquiry, the agency has been looking into allegations made by a former Brookfield executive, who says she was ordered to bribe city officials to obtain permits required for shopping malls and says she was fired for refusing to do so.[49] The recent charges emerged following Brookfield Asset Management's April 2010 dismissal of Daniela Spinola Gonzalez, the former chief financial officer of a Brookfield-managed real estate fund in São Paulo. Reached by the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation, Gonzalez said that in the spring of 2009 she uncovered a series of payments to São Paulo municipal officials aimed at obtaining approval of expansion projects at four different malls. Specifically she alleges they were designed to cover up the real estate fund's lack of compliance with a series of pre-expansion mandates from the São Paulo building approval department designed to address a potential increase in traffic flow. When she discovered requests to approve large payments to holding companies she had never heard of, she investigated further and found municipal officials had set up entities to receive payments from the real estate fund. Gonzalez alleges that when confronted her unit and corporate supervisors, including Steven J. Douglas, then the head of the Brookfield Asset Management's international property portfolio, with news she felt sure would outrage them, she was told repeatedly, "This is the way of doing business in Brazil." The angriest they got about the bribes, according to her, was when they chastised her for discussing sensitive fund business in an email. (In reporting on the claims of Gonzalez, the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation examined a series of emails between Gonzalez and her supervisors, other internal Brookfield documents and a letter written to the SEC by her lawyers.) Dismissed in April 2010, Gonzalez filed a labor grievance shortly thereafter in São Paulo. Brookfield Asset Management filed a lawsuit against her in 2011, alleging she had engaged in embezzlement; she says the charges are nothing more than "a complete fabrication to make me seem like a criminal." Asked about Gonzalez and her charges, Brookfield Asset Management spokesman Andrew Willis said, among other statements, "Notwithstanding the suspect source of the allegations, Brookfield conducted an investigation into these matters. The investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing by Brookfield or any of its employees."[50]
General Growth Properties
In 2010, Brookfield led a recapitalization of U.S. shopping mall operator General Growth Properties (GGP), with the support of several institutional investors, including Pershing Square. In 2012, Pershing Square founder and chief executive William Ackman pressed for the sale of GGP to Simon Property Group, which had previously bid for GGP.(click on link to view presentation)[51] On December 31, 2012, Pershing Square agreed to sell a portion of its stake in GGP to Brookfield for $270 million and signed a four year agreement to be a passive investor in the company, while Brookfield agreed to a 45% cap on its stake in GGP.[29]
Plymouth County Retirement Association
In December 2010, Plymouth County Retirement Association filed suit against Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) as a minority stockholder of Brookfield Homes Corporation. BAM held 51% of Brookfield Properties Corporation, which was divided into two divisions, residential and commercial properties. A merger between Brookfield Homes and the residential assets in Brookfield Properties formed a new company called Brookfield Residential Properties Inc.[52] The lawsuit alleges the transaction is not fair to Brookfield Homes minority stockholders and serves to benefit BAM, which stands on both sides of the transaction, at the expense of the minority stockholders.[53] Since the company was created 2010, shares in Brookfield Residential Properties have more than doubled in value.
Who is in Control?
Few companies bear a structure as complex as Brookfield's: Analyzing the company's organizational tree and its web of entities, stakes, partnerships and operating companies is to behold the work of gifted accountants and lawyers. Similarly, Brookfield's financial filings are mind-boggling in their complexity. Brookfield bears a pyramidal control structure, a design that U.S. regulators have frowned on since the 1930s. Simply stated, this type of structure lets a small group of shareholders exercise control of a business without putting a proportionate amount of capital at risk. (This kind of corporate structure is often depicted by a pyramid; hence the name. It is legal and to varying degrees common in Europe, Asia and Canada. But it should not be confused with a pyramid scheme.) Those in the founding group can leverage their capital to effectively control a broad network of assets or investments; often members of this group do so by creating a holding company with the right to appoint half or more of the board of directors of the parent company. In turn, these directors can oversee a series of acquisitions using the company's capital, most of which belongs to other people. For the shareholders outside of the control group - even if their capital is doing most of the buying - their influence upon the board of directors is perpetually limited, no matter how much they have invested.[54]
Brookfield Property Partners
Recently the Securities and Exchange Commission has been peppering Brookfield with a series of increasingly probing queries and, in its own, stilted bureaucratic language, demanding some serious changes to how Brookfield and its subsidiaries disclose details about their operations to investors.
Brookfield Property Partners, a publicly traded limited partnership spun out of Brookfield Asset Management to hold its commercial real estate operations, has been an object of fascination for the SEC's accounting mavens. Their communications, in a series of letters and responses carrying on for several months from 2012 to this year, represent an unusually bold turn for the SEC, an agency whose track record is anything but aggressive when it comes to parsing corporate filings to find looming investor headaches. Using the 2011 annual report as a springboard, the SEC last year sent a series of letters to Brookfield Property demanding clarification of its valuation policy, which, as laid out in footnotes, states in part, "All properties are externally valued on a three-year rotation plan." To an investor reading the above, the implications appear both rational and plain: Brookfield Property-poised to be one of world's leading real estate managers-calculates the fair value of its assets using a combination of its own (internal) assessments and, for a third of the properties each year, the input of qualified and independent consultants. Except it doesn't.
The SEC's sustained questioning of Brookfield Property Partners last year about property valuation process eventually forced Brookfield Property Partners, in a written September 2012 reply, that it does not use "external valuations" to value its investment property. So investors can now see that Brookfield Property Partners describes the worth of its portfolio, much in the manner of Humpty Dumpty; the words selected mean whatever it says they are. (Furthermore, while Brookfield Asset Management and Brookfield Property Partners are legally distinct entities, with separate investors, filings and boards of directors, Brookfield Asset Management directs all of Brookfield Property's operations and consolidates its earnings and assets as its own-as it does for all its subsidiaries. Brookfield Asset Management insists that the boards of its subsidiaries are independent. Yet although the board of one subsidiary, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, meets the legal definition of independent, as the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation described in March, five of its eight members have deep economic ties to parent company Brookfield Asset Management.) But what about all that fancy legal wording describing "internal and external appraisal," which was prominently displayed and repeated throughout the filings of Brookfield Asset Management and its subsidiaries? It seems that this was primarily used for financing purposes. The goal was to give investors and lenders the distinct impression that Brookfield Property Partners relies on a rigorous arm's-length process to value its portfolio when the reality was the opposite. Plus there are big ramifications to some clever wording buried in the footnotes of Brookfield Property's annual report.
Last year more than $1.3 billion in fair value changes were flowed into Brookfield Property Partners $2.7 billion in net income, according to its 2012 annual report. In other words, nearly 50 percent of its profits were attributed to accounting entries-existing only on paper-that had nothing to do with leasing or selling properties at a profit. So here's where a set of truly independent set of eyes reviewing Brookfield Property's portfolio could mean something beyond an abstract legal concept, perhaps a check and balance. Indeed an independent review could result in a different opinion of the value of Brookfield Property's billions of dollars of assets and perhaps a substantial change to its bottom line. After all, if Brookfield Properties excluded fair value changes from its filing and reported earnings of $1.4 billion, the subsidiary might have warranted a sharply different stock price.[55]
References
- ^ "Company Overview". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 2, 2013.
- ^ a b "James Flatt: Executive Profile & Biography". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved December 2, 2013.
- ^ a b c d e "2012 Annual Report". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved December 2, 2013.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Interim Report Q3 2013". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved December 2, 2013.
- ^ a b "Schedule 13D/A". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved December 2, 2013.
- ^ a b "Brookfield Canada Office Properties". Reuters. Retrieved December 2, 2013.
- ^ a b "Interim Report Q2 2009". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved December 2, 2013.
- ^ a b "BAM Profile & Executives". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved December 2, 2013.
- ^ Won, Shirley (September 16, 2005). "What's in a name? Plenty if it's Brascan". The Globe and Mail.
- ^ "Brazilian Traction Light and Power Company Ltd". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved December 4, 2013.
- ^ "Brookfield Asset profit weaken, revenue increases". The Globe and Mail. February 15, 2013.
- ^ "Company Overview of Brookfield Financial Real Estate Group". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved December 5, 2013.
- ^ "Brookfield Asset Management Stock Quote". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved December 5, 2013.
{{cite web}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=
(help) - ^ Pachner, Joanna."Brookfield Asset Management: A perfect predator",Canadian Business, Canada, 16August2010 Retrieved 23September2012
- ^ "Brookfield Asset Mgmt looks to emerging markets". Reuters. November 8, 2013.
- ^ Levitt, David (October 26, 2012). "World Financial Center Renamed in Brookfield Tenant Shift". Bloomberg L.P.
- ^ "Brookfield to Create Commercial Real Estate Giant". World Property Channel. September 30, 2013.
- ^ a b c Simon, Bernard (September 23, 2001). "Private Sector; A Landlord at Disaster's Margin". The New York Times.
- ^ Schratz, Allie. "Brookfield Rail Makes Significant Improvements to the MidWest Rail Network". Business Review Australia.
- ^ "Background — Organisation of Australia's Railways". The Australian Government Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development. Retrieved December 5, 2013.
{{cite web}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=
(help) - ^ "The United Kingdom Major Ports Group Limited - Welcome". The United Kingdom Major Ports Group Limited. Retrieved December 5, 2013.
{{cite web}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=
(help) - ^ a b Reguly, Eric (November 26, 2004). "And the winner is...BRUCE FLATT". The Globe and Mail.
- ^ a b Pachner, Joanna (August 16, 2010). "Brookfield Asset Management: A perfect predator". Canadian Business.
- ^ Regehr, Theodore. "Mackenzie, Sir William". Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Retrieved December 8, 2013.
- ^ a b c "Brascan Corporation History". International Directory of Company Histories. Retrieved December 8, 2013.
- ^ "INDUSTRIES: Business History of Utilities". Business History. Retrieved December 8, 2013.
- ^ "Brookfield to buy Fairholme's General Growth stake". Reuters. 18 January 2011. Retrieved 7 March 2012.
- ^ Gallun, Alby (27August2012). "Ackman presses General Growth to consider acquisition by Simon". chicagorealestatedaily.com.
{{cite news}}
: Check date values in:|date=
(help) - ^ a b http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/ackman-brookfield-reach-truce-on-us-mall-spat/article6890999/
- ^ Drummer, Randyl (May 16, 2012). "Brookfield Asset Management to Spin Off $70B CRE Company". CoStar Group, Inc.
- ^ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/news-sources/?date=20121221&archive=ccnm&slug=201212220843595001
- ^ Brown, Eliot (August 27, 2013). "Brookfield Bets on Downtown L.A. Rebirth". Wall Street Journal.
- ^ "Brookfield Asset Management Inc's Private Equity Group Acquires Canadian Cold Storage Business". Reuters. June 3, 2013.
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- ^ "Kapstone completes purchase of Longview Fibre Paper & Packaging". Converting Quarterly. July 24, 2013.
- ^ Block, Carson (July 10, 2013). "Adventures Abroad Could Hurt U.S. Companies". The New York Times.
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- ^ Whiteley, Don. "Oilsands with a Twist of Limestone",’’Stockhouse.com’’, Canada, 30June2006 Retrieved 22July2012
- ^ Gray, Jeff. "Squeezed-out Birch Mountain shareholders take on Brookfield",’’The Globe and Mail’’, Canada, 15November2011 Retrieved22July2012
- ^ Todd, Jeffrey. "Brookfield fights legal battle in Canada over asset transfer",’’The Nassau Guardian’’, Bahamas, 26January2012 Retrieved 22July2012
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{{cite web}}
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suggested) (help) - ^ Jinks, Beth (27 April 2012). "Kerzner Hands Atlantis Bahamas to Brookfield, Palm to Dubai". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved 24 September 2012.
- ^ Karmin, Craig; Trevisani, Paulo (19 September 2012). "Brookfield Faces Brazil Accusations". Wall Street Journal. p. C12.
{{cite news}}
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requires|url=
(help) - ^ Trevisani, Paulo, Karmin, Craig. "Brookfield São Paulo Affiliate Is Questioned",’’The Wall Street Journal’’, 19November2013 Retrieved24Nov2013
- ^ Boyd, Roddy. "Brookfield's Looking-Glass World",’’Seeking Alpha’’, 19Nov2013 Retrieved 24Nov2013[unreliable source?]
- ^ LaRoche, Julia. "Here's The Massive Presentation On REITs That Bill Ackman Delivered At The Value Investing Congress",’’Businessinsider’’, US, 2October2012 Retrieved 21Oct2012
- ^ http://brookfieldrp.com/[self-published source]
- ^ "Court of Chancery State of Delaware" 13Dec2010 Retrieved 30Oct2012
- ^ Boyd, Roddy. "The Paper World Of Brookfield Asset Management",’’Seeking Alpha’’, 11Mar2013 Retrieved 1Nov2013[unreliable source?]
- ^ Boyd, Roddy. "Brookfield's Looking-Glass World",’’Seeking Alpha’’, 19Nov2013 Retrieved 24Nov2013[unreliable source?]