Brookfield names new CEO of $140-billion private equity arm

financialpost.com:

Brookfield Asset Management has appointed Anuj Ranjan as the new chief executive officer of its private equity business as the Canadian investment giant seeks to scale up the unit amid a challenging period for the broader buyout industry.

Ranjan will replace Cyrus Madon, who is taking on a new role as executive chairman of private equity and will continue to be actively involved in the group, which manages about US$140 billion in assets globally. The Canadian firm wants to expand private equity to the same scale as its other flagship businesses, Ranjan said in an interview.

“While we are already a significant private equity investor, there is a real opportunity in front of us to meaningfully scale and be one of the largest in the world,” said Ranjan, who was most recently the president of the buyout business. “In most of the businesses that we are in — whether it is infrastructure, real estate or energy transition — we are already among the top investors globally.”

Brookfield’s broader private equity business includes its flagship buyout strategy Brookfield Capital Partners, its special investments business that can do debt or equity deals and a secondaries business that the Toronto-based firm acquired last year from Deutsche Bank AG’s asset management unit. The business also includes the listed unit Brookfield Business Partners as well as some of the firm’s partnerships like the one with Sequoia Heritage for a business focused on secondary and structured capital solutions in the technology and venture capital space.

In a quiet spell for buyout firms over the past year, Brookfield has been among the most active, agreeing to multibillion-dollar deals for companies including U.S. annuity provider American Equity Investment