Episode summary
Catching Up With Power Investors Howard Marks and Bruce Flatt | At Barron's
At Barron's
· · 29 min · Hosts: Andy Serwer · Guests: Bruce Flatt, Howard Marks
Summary
Brookfield’s full takeover of Oaktree was presented as a long-planned combination of two complementary businesses: Brookfield’s global infrastructure platform and Oaktree’s credit expertise. The guest said the deal was structured over seven years to keep investment teams decentralized while giving clients more scale, more capital, and a stronger credit offering. The other guest said the partnership has worked because Brookfield did not interfere in the investment process and instead added resources and capital.
The conversation then turned to market conditions. One guest argued that stock-market optimism has dominated since October 1, 2022, helping fuel record prices and large IPOs, which implies lower forward returns than average. He also said credit markets have enjoyed a long period of easy borrowing, with fear and due diligence receding as competition rises. On interest rates, he said he sees no reason to cut and more reason to raise if inflation risks reemerge.
Both guests framed Brookfield’s strength as balance-sheet durability, long-duration infrastructure assets, and an ownership mentality. The guest from Brookfield said the firm is seeing exceptional private-market opportunities in power, data centers, and AI infrastructure, while the Oaktree executive said distress is not yet spiking in software credit, even if worry has risen.
Key takeaways
- The Brookfield-Oaktree combination is meant to expand credit at scale without disrupting decentralized investment teams.
- One guest said optimism has driven markets since October 1, 2022, which typically means higher prices and lower intermediate-term returns.
- The Oaktree guest said credit markets are generous, borrowing is easy, and fear has receded after years of strong conditions.
- Brookfield said its advantage is a large, durable balance sheet and infrastructure cash flows that investors view as safer than peers.
- The Brookfield guest said power, data centers, and AI-related infrastructure still offer attractive private-market opportunities despite high public-market valuations.
Notable quotes
“we're in the business of providing backbone infrastructure around the world”
“the Brookfield is not a a control freak and in particular has not inserted itself in our investment process”
“optimism is what permits things like the IPOs we're looking at”
How the episode opens
Hello everyone and welcome to At Barrens. I'm Andy Serwart and welcome to our guest Bruce Flat, CEO of Brookfield Corporation and Howard Marx, co-chairman of Oak Tree Capital Management. Bruce Howard, nice to see you. Thank you so much for joining us.
Great to be here.
Thank you. So Brookfield is the big alternative investment company. Oak Tree is also an investment company which is specialized in distressed debt.
We're talking to both of you because Brookfield now owns Oak Tree. Bruce, why don't I start with you? You bought a big piece of Oak Tree in 2019 and more recently now you've bought the entire company.
Why did you buy it in the first place, the piece? And why did you buy the whole thing now? Uh, thanks for having us, Andy.
And and look, I would just say we're um we're in the business of providing backbone infrastructure around the world. And what that really means is we build, own, operate, and lend to um the largest groups of infrastructure on the planet. So think uh railways and uh pipelines and data centers and AI factories and transmission lines and renewable power and all of those backbone infrastructure.
And uh 7 years ago, we had equity strategies in all these and small funds where we could provide uh lending and uh we looked around the world and said uh if we were going to get there and and achieve excellence for our clients, what we needed to do was to have the best in credit and it was going to take us a long time to get there. And we approached Howard to bolt uh Oak Tree uh underneath uh Brookfield and uh he agreed to do that. But we did it in a very um special way which was it took us seven years to slowly assimilate what we wanted to assimilate and leave our investment teams um decentralized down below.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- power investors
- value investing
- credit and distressed assets
- alternative asset management
- market outlook
Companies and tickers mentioned
- BN
- Brookfield Corporation
- Oaktree Capital Management
Watch the episode
Watch “Catching Up With Power Investors Howard Marks and Bruce Flatt | At Barron's” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
More from At Barron's
-
Kai-Fu Lee on How AI Can Help Grow a Company's Earnings -
Rocket CEO: "Homeowners Are Still Waiting to Buy Homes" -
Moderna CEO on the Biotech’s Cancer Vaccine and Pipeline -
Anthony Scaramucci on Katie Zacharia, Trump, and the Midterms | At Barron's -
IMAX CEO on 'The Odyssey,' Chris Nolan, and Company's Sudden Ascent | At Barron's -
PG&E's CEO on Data Centers, Energy Rates, and the Stock | At Barron's
At Barron's, this episode and its artwork belong to At Barron's. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
