By David G. Barry
Brookfield
Asset Management has closed the largest private fund ever raised to
support the transition to net zero.
The firm closed its Global Transition Fund at $15 billion, blowing past its
initial $12.5 billion hard cap. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board and
Temasek were founding investment partners in the fund.
Others
known to have invested in the fund include PSP Investments, Investment
Management Corporation of Ontario, The University of Victoria Foundation,
Pennsylvania Public Schools Employees’ Retirement System and Ohio
Schools Employees’ Retirement System. All told, more than 100 institutional
investors committed to the fund. Brookfield is, itself, the largest investor in
the fund. It also has kept it open for a limited number of private wealth
investors through Brookfield Oaktree Wealth Solutions.
The fund is investing in the transformation of carbon-intensive industries as
well as the development and accessibility of clean energy. It has to date
deployed $2.5 billion. Among the fund’s investments have been the acquisition
of U.S. and German solar power and battery developers; an investment in a
carbon capture and storage developer; and a development partnership with a U.K.
battery storage provider.
The fund is co-headed by Mark Carney and Connor Teskey.
In a statement, Carney, Brookfield’s vice chair, said the fund “provides
significant scale of capital with catalytic long-term investment the world
needs to help put our planet on a sustainable net-zero pathway.”
Publicly traded Brookfield Asset Management has $725 billion of assets under
management across renewable power and transition, infrastructure, private
equity, real estate, and credit and insurance solutions.