Brookfield Asset Management Q3 FFO More Than Halves

(RTTNews) - Canadian property owner Brookfield Asset Management, Inc. (BAM, BAM-A.TO) reported Friday that funds from operations or FFO, for the third quarter more than halved from last year, which was boosted by high level of disposition gains.

The Calgary, Alberta-based publicly-owned alternative asset manager focused on property, renewable power and infrastructure assets, reported FFO of $564 million or $0.83 per share for the third quarter, sharply lower than $1.19 billion or $1.85 per share in the prior-year quarter.

Total FFO for the year-ago quarter included a high level of disposition gains arising from several large monetization transactions.

FFO, excluding realized disposition gains, increased six percent to $362 million from $342 million in the 2013 quarter, benefiting from increased fee related earnings and investment returns.

Net income attributable to shareholders for the quarter decreased to $734 million or $1.09 per share from $813 million or $1.23 per share in the year-ago quarter.

Total revenues for the quarter increased to $4.66 billion from $4.50 billion in the same quarter last year. Wall Street analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $4.54 billion for the quarter.

"We continue to deploy capital, increase our fee bearing assets and harvest investments. Our access to capital, global scale and operating platforms continue to provide us with competitive advantages when investing our capital," CEO Bruce Flatt said in a statement.

The company noted that it has announced or completed acquisitions and capital expansions that will deploy more than $3.0 billion of equity capital on behalf of clients and Brookfield shareholders.

The company said it has committed $19 billion to real asset investments over the last twelve months, including a large net lease commercial property portfolio, natural gas assets and a European telecom tower portfolio.

Fee revenues increased 21 percent to $721 million and fee bearing capital increased 14 percent year-over-year to $84 billion at the end of the quarter, reflecting market price appreciation and issuance from flagship partnerships and continued demand for private fund and public markets capital.

The company has more than $12 billion of private funds in marketing for a variety of strategies which should raise about $9 billion of third-party capital.

The company noted it has raised about $5 billion for its private funds in the last 12 months. Total assets under management stood at $193 billion at the end of the quarter.

Additionally, the company's board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.16 per share, payable on December 31, 2014 to shareholders of record as at the close of business on November 30, 2014. The Board also declared all of the regular monthly and quarterly dividends on its preferred shares.

BAM closed Thursday's regular trading session at $48.34, down $0.26 on a volume of 0.58 million shares. In the past 52-week period, the stock has been trading in a range of $36.47 to $49.51.