Oxstones Investment Club™By: Matthew J. Belvedere, CNBC’s Squawk Box,
With a $100 billion in assets in the United States already, the man many call the Warren Buffett of Canada told CNBC on Friday that he’s “still putting money into America.”
“We’re very bullish on America—the economy is doing extremely well,” value investor Bruce Flatt, CEO of Brookfield Asset Management, said in a “Squawk Box” interview. “Housing is coming back. Retail is coming back. [The] shale gas revolution is doing a lot of things. Manufacturing is coming back.”
Toronto-based Brookfield describes itself as a global alternative asset manager, which invests in real estate, infrastructure and renewable power. It also operates in the private equity and asset management arenas.
“We think real assets … will be a base of institutional client portfolios over the next 10 years,” Flatt said. “Real assets are not fixed-income investments. Often they are confused. These real assets, the cash flows will go up with inflation. They’ll go up with business conditions. They’ll go up as America gets better and every other country gets better.”
Besides the U.S., he said he’s looking for value plays in Europe and in emerging markets “as money comes out of those markets and there’s less capital there.”
Flatt is also focusing on investments around commodities. “There are a lot of commodity companies that have infrastructure assets that they need off their balance sheets or need partners,” he said.
And like billionaire American investor Warren Buffett, Flatt said he’s in it for the long haul. “We’re just trying to become a good partner to global companies and be there for the next 25 or 50 years with them.”
For investors always striving to catch the bottom before buying, he added, “You don’t have to pick the bottom of the market. You just need to earn a decent return over a long period of time.”
In the current low interest rate environment, Flatt told CNBC that investors with Brookfield, which has $184 billion in assets under management, can expect a 12 percent to 15 percent return “consistently over time.”
On Friday, Brookfield reported $802 million of net income and $464 million of funds from operations for common shareholders in the second quarter. Both results were more than double the levels a year earlier.
Tags: american manufacturing, asset management, BAM, Brookfield Asset Management, Bruce Flatt, bullish on america, commodities, global alternative asset manager, infrastructure development, investing in commodity producers, investment wisdom, long term investing, private equity, real assets, real estate, renewable energy projects, renewable power, shale gas revolution, value investing, warren buffett of canada