Brookfield accelerates infrastructure strategy in Australia

Brookfield has expanded its private wealth offering in Australia with the launch of an infrastructure income fund designed to provide wholesale investors access to the assets managers global private infrastructure portfolio.

The Brookfield Infrastructure Income Fund (BII) is being made available to Australian wealth investors, including advisers and self-managed superannuation funds, as demand for private market investments continues to grow.

The strategy, which has total assets of US$8.3 billion, provides exposures to a diversified portfolio of private infrastructure assets and aims to deliver regular income through monthly distributions and lower minimums.

Brookfield said the launch reflects increasing appetite among individual investors for infrastructure assets that can provide stable cash flows, inflation protection and diversification benefits at a time of heightened market uncertainty.

"For decades, institutional investors have benefited from Brookfield's investment capabilities and access to high-quality infrastructure assets, which deliver strong cash flows, built-in inflation protection, and low correlation to equities and bonds," Brookfield head of international private wealth Jeremy Hall said.

"These characteristics are increasingly sought after by individual investors to insulate and improve risk-adjusted returns for their portfolios," Hall said.

Hall noted the fund would allow Australian wealth investors to access the same infrastructure capabilities that have traditionally been available to large institutional investors.

"By bringing BII to Australia, we're providing the same access to Brookfield's long standing institutional infrastructure expertise and track record to individual investors in Australia looking to diversify their portfolios," Hall said.

The launch forms part of Brookfield's broader push into the private wealth market across Asia Pacific. Earlier this year, the firm partnered with Japanese financial institution Mizuho Securities to distribute its infrastructure income strategy in Japan.

This comes after earlier strategic moves by Brookfield which sold its significant minority stake in La Trobe Financial to Asia-focused private equity investment manager Axight for $3 billion. Together, these actions highlight a coordinated effort to build a scaled private markets ecosystem, combing product innovation with platform expansion.