Brookfield Asset Management Q1 FFO Rises

(RTTNews) - Canadian property owner Brookfield Asset Management, Inc. (BAM, BAM-A.TO) on Wednesday reported a 13 percent increase in funds from operations or FFO for the first quarter from last year, reflecting disposition gains and higher fee related earnings.

The Toronto, Ontario-based publicly-owned alternative asset manager focused on property, renewable power and infrastructure assets, reported FFO for the first quarter of $557 million or $0.82 per share, up from $492 million or $0.72 per share in the prior-year quarter.

FFO benefited from the continued expansion of the company's asset management operations, which contributed to a 27 percent increase in fee related earnings. However, the increased contribution from growth initiatives was offset by lower contribution from the company's renewable energy operations.

Net income attributable to shareholders for the quarter rose to $729 million or $1.09 per share from $541 million or $0.80 per share in the year-ago quarter.

The increase in earnings per share for the quarter reflects the contribution from acquired and developed assets as well as the value created by operating initiatives across the company's operations. Strong leasing results and development activities within the property operations contributed to increased fair value gains.

Total revenues for the quarter increased 1 percent to $4.40 billion from $4.34 billion in the same quarter last year. Analysts were looking for revenue of $4.99 billion for the quarter.

CEO Bruce Flatt said, "Brookfield's businesses started the year with strong performance and we continue to see attractive investment opportunities across all of our global platforms. Our asset management business continues to expand as our clients increase their capital allocations to real asset investment strategies."

Fee revenues increased 18 percent to $791 million on a last twelve months basis and fee bearing capital increased 12 percent year-over-year to $93.2 billion at the end of the quarter.

The company has committed or deployed $3 billion of capital in new investments during the quarter, including an oil and gas business in Australia, wind facilities in Portugal and U.S. multifamily apartments. This increases the amount of capital deployed by the company over the past twelve months to over $15 billion.

Earlier this year, Brookfield commenced marketing a number of private funds targeting over $11 billion of capital. In addition, the company has fully invested or committed to invest the capital of its flagship property and private equity funds.

The company noted that its flagship infrastructure fund is nearly 70 percent invested, which puts us in a position to launch its next fund.

Brookfield's total assets under management stood at $207 billion at the end of the quarter.

Additionally, the company's board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.12 per share, payable on June 30, 2015 to shareholders of record as at the close of business on May 29, 2015.

This dividend will be paid following the three-for-two stock split of the Class A shares that will occur on May 12, 2015. On a pre-split basis, it represents $0.18 per share, or $0.82 per annum.

The board also declared all of the regular monthly and quarterly dividends on its preferred shares.

BAM is trading at $52.28, down $1.00 or 1.88 percent on a volume of 156,723 shares.