The story
Founded by Frederick Stark Pearson and William Mackenzie on Apr 7, 1899, in Toronto.1
In April 1997, the Edper Group Ltd. announced its intention to merge with its subsidiary Brascan Ltd. At the time, Edper owned 47 per cent of Brascan shares. If approved, the merger would create a new $8 billion company. Robert Harding, president of Edper, stated that the intention of the merger was "furthering the simplification initiative that we started in 1993." On 10 July 1997, special meetings of both companies were held, and both groups of shareholders voted in favour of the merger. On 1 August 1997, the new EdperBrascan Corporation came into being as an Ontario corporation (number 1249197).
In 2002, Bruce Flatt was appointed CEO of Brascan.
In June 2005 Noranda, which was 41-percent-owned by Brascan, merged with Falconbridge Nickel Mines, and in August 2005 Brascan decided to sell its mineral holdings, to Xstrata.
In September 2005, after 37 years, Brascan Corp. was renamed to Brookfield Asset Management Inc. Between 2013 and 2018, the company and its subsidiaries invested approximately $10 billion in Brazilian energy, infrastructure and real estate developments, including acquisitions of oil pipelines from energy companies such as Petroleo Brasileiro SA.
In 2015, Brookfield Asset Management became the ultimate parent company of what is now Brookfield Global Integrated Solutions (BGIS), when it acquired control of Brookfield Johnson Controls from its joint venture partner, Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls. At that time, an activist investor had been putting pressure on Johnson Controls to divest of its real estate division. The facilities management business was renamed Brookfield Global Integrated Solutions (BGIS) as part of Brookfield's plan to establish a “leading global facilities management provider”. BGIS expanded rapidly following Brookfield's taking control of BGIS in 2015, In 2016, when BGIS acquired the US-based data centre facility management service—McKinstry FMS—which had over “350 engineers, technicians, planners and program managers”, BGIS became one of the largest facility management companies serving data centres in North America. By 2017, when Gord Hicks was named as Toronto-based BGIS’ CEO, the company had 7,000 staff members and 100 clients in the United States, the United Kingdom, Asia, and Canada, which included contracts with the Canadian federal government. By 2022, according to a Carleton University School of Public Policy and Administration analysis of federal government contracts for real estate management, the Government of Canada spent over $1 billion on contracts with BGIS in 2021–2022, representing the largest vendor contracts at that time. In 2019, Brookfield Asset Management sold its BGIS shares to CCMP Capital Advisors—an American private equity investment firm—for over CAD$1.3 billion with Hicks remaining as CEO. and was awarded the 2020 Private Equity Deal of the Year for the BGIS sale.
By 2018, Brookfield's major public subsidiaries included Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, Brookfield Renewable Partners, Brookfield Property Partners, and Brookfield Business Partners. In August 2018, Brookfield purchased Westinghouse Electric Company, a manufacturer of large nuclear reactors, out of bankruptcy for $4.6 billion.
On March 13, 2019, Brookfield Asset Management announced that it had agreed to buy most of Oaktree Capital Management for about $4.7 billion, creating one of the world's largest alternative money managers. On July 31, 2019, the sale of Vodafone New Zealand Limited to a consortium comprising Infratil Limited and Brookfield Asset Management Inc. was settled.
In a deal in October 2019, Brookfield bought The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts, an Indian luxury hotel chain located in New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Udaipur, in a US$530 million settlement, marking the entry of Brookfield in India's hospitality market.
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In 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Brookfield's CEO Bruce Flatt assessed that the economic fallout was “much more manageable” than previous meltdowns.
In October 2020, Mark Carney, departing Governor of the Bank of England and future Prime Minister of Canada, became a vice-chair of Brookfield, leading the firm's environmental, social and governance (ESG) and impact fund investment strategy.
In November 2020, there were reports that Brookfield might partner with Rogers Communications to introduce condominiums to the site of the Rogers Centre baseball stadium, home of the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball, reducing the amount of space available for sport, but the partnership never transpired.
On April 25, 2022, it was announced the Brookfield and Simon Property Group were set to offer to buy Kohl's.
In November 2022, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) bought Brookfield's portfolio of Indian road assets for $1.2 billion.
In August 2022, Intel signed a $30 billion partnership with Brookfield to fund its recent factory expansions. As part of the deal, Intel would have a controlling stake by funding 51 percent of the cost of building new chip-making facilities in Chandler, Arizona, with Brookfield owning the remaining 49 percent stake, allowing the companies to split the revenue from those facilities.
On December 9, 2022, the company's name was changed from Brookfield Asset Management Inc. to Brookfield Corporation. Brookfield Corporation then spun-off 25% interest in their asset management business into the new publicly listed Brookfield Asset Management Ltd.
In April 2023, it was reported by Bloomberg that Brookfield Corporation had defaulted on $161.4 million worth of office building mortgages, mostly in the Washington D.C. area, due to high office vacancy and interest rates. Two months before, Brookfield defaulted on $784 million in mortgages for two Los Angeles office towers. It was suggested the defaults were a strategy to renegotiate commercial mortgages.
In November 2024, Brookfield committed an additional £900 million to support Canary Wharf Group months after its credit rating was cut to “junk” status. The value of CWG's office portfolio plunged by £1.5 billion to £4.27 billion after the COVID-19 pandemic caused a loss of tenants. Brookfield and Qatar Investment Authority had minority stakes in CWG until 2015 when the partners acquired 100% for an additional £2.6 billion.
Brookfield stated it was shifting towards residential properties and disposed of more than $10 billion of commercial properties from 2020 to 2022. In December 2024, Brookfield bought US student-housing communities for $893 million, eyeing communities that had growing student enrollment and limited supply. Brookfield also purchased, or was negotiating a $5 billion deal to obtain North American residential assets.
In January 2025, according to The Globe and Mail, it was announced that Brookfield had bought out its partners, CPPIB and Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo), in the Maritime Life Building in Toronto, which had been on the market for over two years without receiving a suitable offer.
In July 2025, Brookfield Wealth Solutions agreed to acquire Just Group, a UK-based financial services company, for $3.18 billion. The deal was part of Brookfield's planned expansion into the UK pension risk market.
In February 2026, Brookfield announced the promotion of Connor Teskey to Chief Executive of its asset management arm, as part of its broader succession planning for long-term Chief Executive Bruce Flatt.
From Wikipedia’s article on Brookfield Corporation, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.8