Private Equity Firm Brookfield Targets Global Dominance in P/C Insurance Coverage

Brookfield Corp. plans to build its property and casualty insurance business as it looks to exploit a corner of the insurance industry in which the firm has a competitive edge and hasn’t been crowded by other private equity players.

The firm is seeking “a relatively low-risk” area of property and casualty insurance “where we can become globally dominant and create float to invest into our strategies,” particularly its higher-earning equity strategies, Chief Executive Officer Bruce Flatt said in an interview Tuesday at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference.

Brookfield is focused on areas “where we have something special,” including underwriting insurance for real estate construction and warehouses, he said.

Read more: Brookfield Turns Focus to Insurance as Source of Fresh Capital

While annuities remain Brookfield’s largest business within insurance, the firm wants to grow the property and casualty insurance business, which currently makes up a small portion of its book.

P/C accounted for just $3.5 billion of equity as of the second quarter, but Brookfield aims to grow that to $30 billion to $50 billion in the long run by writing policies for real estate construction, industrial warehouses and renewable power facilities.

The Canadian firm has been aggressively expanding its insurance and wealth business, snapping up companies in the US, pushing into the UK market and, more recently, expanding into Japan’s reinsurance market.

Flatt also said Tuesday that he expects asset sales to accelerate in the US as interest rates drop.

“You’re going to see a lot of more monetizations in the United States and that’s good for us — but it’s also good for the industry in general,” said Flatt, who’s also the CEO of New York-based Brookfield Asset Management.