Teleconferência de Resultados do 2º Trimestre de 2026 da Brookfield Corporation (BN): DE cresce 15% com a expansão de IA e seguros

Principais Destaques

• O lucro distribuível (DE) antes de realizações subiu 15% em relação ao mesmo período do ano anterior por ação, atingindo US$ 1,4 bilhão, ou US$ 0,61 por ação. O DE total alcançou US$ 1,5 bilhão, ou US$ 0,66 por ação.
• A Brookfield captou um recorde de US$ 77 bilhões no trimestre. O capital gerador de taxas aumentou 19%, para US$ 672 bilhões, sustentando um crescimento de 20% nos lucros relacionados a taxas.
• A divisão de Wealth Solutions gerou US$ 480 milhões em DE, alta de 23% em relação ao ano anterior. Os ativos de seguros ultrapassaram US$ 190 bilhões após a inclusão de US$ 45 bilhões do Just Group.
• A Brookfield captou US$ 98 bilhões, alocou US$ 100 bilhões e concluiu cerca de US$ 40 bilhões em vendas de ativos no primeiro semestre de 2026. O capital disponível para alocação atingiu um recorde de US$ 210 bilhões.
• A gestão descreveu a infraestrutura de IA como um ciclo amplo de investimento em estágio inicial, englobando data centers, energia, setor imobiliário, infraestrutura e financiamento de capacidade computacional. A Brookfield planeja financiar a maioria das oportunidades por meio de seus fundos, co-investidores e emissores listados, em vez de depender prioritariamente do balanço da BN.
• A empresa concluiu a aquisição da Oaktree em julho e recebeu a aprovação dos acionistas para a simplificação de sua estrutura de capital, reunindo suas capacidades de seguros e investimentos.

Dados Financeiros Principais

Desempenho Empresarial e Operacional

Gestão de ativos e atividade de capital

A Brookfield captou US$ 17 bilhões em suas estratégias principais (flagship) durante o trimestre, incluindo US$ 7 bilhões para sua sétima safra de private equity e US$ 9 bilhões para sua sexta safra de infraestrutura. A gestão afirmou que ambas as estratégias estão no caminho certo para se tornarem as maiores de suas respectivas séries.

A empresa concluiu cerca de US$ 40 bilhões em vendas de ativos no primeiro semestre. As transações incluíram o IPO da plataforma norte-americana de data centers em colocalização Cyxtera, que gerou cerca de US$ 1,2 bilhão em recursos. A Brookfield manteve uma participação de 64%. Também vendeu o One Churchill Place por 750 milhões de libras esterlinas e a Multiplex por US$ 650 milhões.

A Brookfield realizou US$ 121 milhões em carried interest líquido durante o trimestre. A gestão informou que safras anteriores de infraestrutura e fundos da Oaktree estão se aproximando de um ponto de inflexão de realização de carry, embora o carry seja reconhecido de forma conservadora no nível do fundo após o retorno do capital e dos retornos preferenciais.

Wealth Solutions

O Just Group contribuiu com aproximadamente US$ 29 milhões no primeiro trimestre sob controle da Brookfield, representando um retorno sobre o patrimônio líquido (ROE) inicial de cerca de 12%. A Brookfield encerrou iniciativas em estágio inicial focadas no consumidor final (direct-to-consumer), iniciou a redução de custos e começou a introduzir suas capacidades de originação de ativos no portfólio de investimentos do Just Group.

A gestão afirmou que a estrutura de custos do Just Group é de duas a três vezes maior do que a de alguns concorrentes que disputam os mesmos negócios de previdência. A empresa prevê pelo menos 50 pontos-base de melhoria potencial no spread decorrentes da redução de custos, com a rotação de portfólio oferecendo um caminho de mais longo prazo em direção a um spread próximo de 200 pontos-base.

Nos EUA, novos canais de distribuição bancária geraram cerca de US$ 200 milhões em vendas trimestrais de anuidades. A Brookfield vende atualmente entre US$ 12 bilhões e US$ 13 bilhões por meio de organizações independentes de marketing. A gestão vê potencial para mais US$ 10 bilhões a US$ 12 bilhões em vendas anuais via bancos nos próximos anos, o que poderia elevar as vendas combinadas de previdência e anuidades de cerca de US$ 25 bilhões para cerca de US$ 35 bilhões por ano.

Setor imobiliário e negócios operacionais

Os portfólios imobiliários super-core e core-plus da Brookfield encerraram o trimestre com ocupação superior a 95%. Novos contratos de locação no varejo cobrindo quase 1 milhão de pés quadrados iniciaram-se com aluguéis 12% acima dos níveis anteriores.

O portfólio de escritórios firmou 4,5 milhões de pés quadrados em contratos de locação globalmente, a aluguéis líquidos médios 19% superiores aos que estavam vencendo. As locações nos EUA somaram 1,3 milhão de pés quadrados com aluguéis 25% mais altos, enquanto a locação no Canadá superou 700.000 pés quadrados com aluguéis mais de 70% acima dos níveis anteriores.

Infraestrutura de IA e energia

A gestão declarou que a demanda por infraestrutura de IA está criando oportunidades em geração de energia, transmissão, terrenos, data centers, financiamento e capacidade computacional. A Brookfield destacou o anúncio de US$ 100 bilhões para um campus de IA no Kentucky em parceria com o governo dos EUA.

A empresa também está trabalhando com a NVIDIA sob um memorando de entendimento focado em financiamento computacional. A gestão ressaltou que está priorizando fluxos de caixa contratuais, contrapartes de alta qualidade e retornos ajustados ao risco adequados às estratégias de clientes institucionais e de varejo.

A Westinghouse está em vários estágios de construção de 14 reatores. A gestão afirmou que tem visibilidade para outros 40, com a possibilidade de mais 100 posteriormente. O Departamento de Energia dos EUA também anunciou um compromisso de financiamento de US$ 17,5 bilhões em parceria com as concessionárias parceiras da Brookfield para componentes de reatores com longo prazo de entrega.

Perspectivas da Gestão

• A Brookfield espera outro ano recorde de captação de recursos, sustentada pelo impulso em suas estratégias principais e complementares.
• A área de Wealth Solutions continua tendo como meta retornos de pelo menos 15% no longo prazo, mantendo uma subscrição e uma gestão de risco disciplinadas.
• A gestão prevê um caminho para ultrapassar US$ 300 bilhões em ativos de seguros até o final da década.
• A empresa espera que a distribuição por meio de bancos e corretoras se torne uma fonte significativa de crescimento de anuidades nos EUA à medida que os relacionamentos amadureçam ao longo de 2027 e nos anos seguintes.
• A Brookfield espera que a maioria dos investimentos em IA seja financiada por meio de capital de clientes, fundos da Brookfield Asset Management, co-investimentos institucionais e emissores listados. A participação direta do balanço da BN é possível, mas não é a premissa de financiamento do cenário base.
• A gestão prevê que a reciclagem de capital continue fazendo parte de sua estratégia de infraestrutura de IA, à medida que os data centers desenvolvidos se tornem ativos estabilizados adequados para propriedade institucional de longa duração.

Riscos e Pontos de Atenção

A gestão citou conflitos geopolíticos, preços mais altos de energia e incerteza sobre as taxas de juros como fontes de volatilidade de mercado no curto prazo. Restrições na rede elétrica também podem limitar a rapidez com que a nova oferta de energia atende à crescente demanda por computação de IA.

Analistas questionaram a potencial circularidade nas transações de IA. A Brookfield informou que está gerenciando esse risco por meio de proteções contratuais, seleção de contrapartes, exposição diversificada e reciclagem de capital.

No mercado de transferência de risco de previdência no Reino Unido, o Just Group está recebendo convites para dar lances em planos maiores, mas a gestão afirmou que a precificação atual frequentemente produz retornos abaixo das metas da Brookfield. A empresa pretende permanecer paciente em vez de buscar volume com retornos não atrativos.

A Brookfield descreveu o mercado de precificação de P&C como em rápido abrandamento. A gestão acredita que algumas plataformas podem precisar de capital nos próximos 36 meses devido à exposição a catástrofes ou ao crescimento agressivo, o que pode criar oportunidades de aquisição ou parceria.

A área de Wealth Solutions mantém atualmente a duração (duration) de ativos e passivos e os fluxos de caixa amplamente casados. A gestão afirmou que não está assumindo uma posição agressiva em relação às taxas de juros enquanto a incerteza do mercado permanecer elevada.

Destaques das Perguntas e Respostas com Analistas

• Retornos de IA e reciclagem de capital: A gestão enxerga oportunidades atraentes em data centers, energia renovável, energia nuclear, infraestrutura e setor imobiliário. Ela enfatizou uma subscrição disciplinada e planeja reciclar ativos estabilizados em estruturas de propriedade institucional de longa duração.
• Plano de melhoria do Just Group: As prioridades de curto prazo são eliminar iniciativas não lucrativas e reduzir custos operacionais. Os retornos de longo prazo devem se beneficiar de ativos reais originados pela Brookfield e da rotação de portfólio.
• Risco de financiamento em IA: A Brookfield está se concentrando em fluxos de caixa contratuais, hyperscalers sólidos, provedores de chips e compradores (offtakers). A gestão afirmou que suas plataformas diversificadas de infraestrutura, energia e setor imobiliário limitam a concentração.
• M&A de seguros: A Brookfield espera que o ciclo de abrandamento em P&C crie oportunidades nos próximos três anos, enquanto o crescimento de anuidades nos EUA deve ser impulsionado principalmente pela expansão orgânica em bancos e corretoras.
• Carried interest: A gestão prevê avanços nos próximos 12 a 24 meses, liderados por safras anteriores de infraestrutura e fundos da Oaktree, mas o momento exato depende do retorno de capital no nível do fundo, dos retornos preferenciais e do risco limitado de clawback.
• Inclusão em índices: A estrutura simplificada dá à Brookfield a opção para uma potencial inclusão em índices dos EUA. A gestão alertou que o processo levará tempo e dependerá da evolução das regras e da presença geográfica da empresa.

Transcrição Completa da Teleconferência de Resultados

Transcrição completa da teleconferência de resultados

Comentários da administração

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Brookfield Corporation Second Quarter 2026 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference call over to our first speaker, Ms. Katie Battaglia, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Katie Battaglia

Thank you, operator, and good morning. Welcome to Brookfield Corporation's Second Quarter 2026 Conference Call. On the call today are Bruce Flatt, our Chief Executive Officer; Nick Goodman, President of Brookfield Corporation; and Sachin Shah, Chief Executive Officer of our Wealth Solutions business.

Bruce will start off by giving a business update, followed by Nick, who will discuss our financial and operating results for the quarter. And finally, Sachin will provide an update on our Wealth Solutions business. After our formal comments, we will turn the call over to the operator and take analyst questions. In order to accommodate all those who want to ask questions, we request that you refrain from asking more than 2 questions. I would like to remind you that in today's comments, including in responding to questions and in discussing new initiatives in our financial and operating performance, we may make forward-looking statements, including forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities laws.

These statements reflect predictions of future events and trends and do not relate to historic events. They are subject to known and unknown risks, and future events and results may differ materially from such statements. For further information on these risks and their potential impacts on our company, please see our filings with the securities regulators in Canada and the U.S. and the information available on our website.

In addition, when we speak about our Wealth Solutions business or Brookfield Wealth Solutions, we are referring to Brookfield's investments in this business that supported the acquisition of its underlying operating subsidiaries.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Bruce.

Bruce Flatt

Thank you, Katie, and welcome to the call. Our business performed well in the second quarter and through the first half. Distributable earnings before realizations increased 15% year-over-year to $1.4 billion in the quarter and $5.7 billion for the last 12 months. In the first half of the year, we were active. We raised $98 billion of capital, deployed $100 billion into opportunities and monetized $40 billion of assets while a further $130 billion of assets were financed.

We advanced several important strategic initiatives. We expanded our insurance business with the acquisition of Just in the U.K. Our assets through that increased to $190 billion. Shareholders approved the simplification of our capital structure, bringing our insurance and investment capabilities together. This creates a stronger and more simpler Brookfield.

Last, we completed the acquisition of Oaktree. Combined, our credit business is now one of the most comprehensive globally. Turning briefly to the market environment. There is no shortage of noise in the markets today, geopolitical conflict, higher energy prices and uncertainty around interest rates. While these factors may influence markets in the near term, our focus remains on firmly building long-term value across the business. None of these factors in the short term will matter too much to our long-term business success. The market environment continues to though, be constructive. Economic resilience and functioning capital markets are supporting operating performance throughout the business and transaction activity.

While uncertainty around growth and inflation is increasing demand for high-quality heavy assets, with low obsolescence risk, precisely the type of assets and businesses which we own. At the same time, long-term investment themes shaping our opportunity set are accelerating. Digitalization, decarbonization and deglobalization, which we have been talking about for years, are now creating opportunities unlike anything we have ever seen. The opportunities are accelerating.

Across AI infrastructure, energy addition, supply chain reorganization and data sovereignty, the opportunities are larger, more multifaceted and more capital intensive. Participating in these investments requires a broad range of capabilities and our advantage sits with our ability to deliver integrated solutions at scale. We have invested decades deliberately building and strengthening the capabilities needed to pursue opportunities of this scale. Together, they have become one of the defining advantages of our business and position us to capitalize on these transformational investment opportunities in the years ahead.

For us, this starts with relationships. Many of the opportunities we pursue are not broadly marketed. They come to us through bilateral discussions and strategic partnerships due to our scale or because certainty of execution matters. We aim to be the first call because of the relationships we have built across industries, geographies and capital markets to originate differentiated opportunities and give our partners access to transactions they could not typically source or pursue directly. Our global presence helps us determine where the best opportunities exist at any point in time. With teams on the ground across markets and asset classes, we see where demand is building, where capital is moving and where risks are emerging. That perspective helps us focus on the best risk-adjusted opportunities.

Our operating expertise is then what allows us to execute. Many of today's most attractive opportunities span multiple disciplines, and we can bring together teams across Brookfield to deliver integrated solutions that address the full scope of the opportunity. Our ability to source and execute is driven by the capital we have available to deploy. Decades of strong investment performance have therefore, enabled us to build a diversified capital base that draws on public markets, institutions, private wealth, long-duration insurance and our own balance sheet. These 5 things make us quite unique. This allows us to match the right capital to each investment and continue deploying through cycles.

Nowhere is this more important of integrating these complementary capabilities more evident than in the rapid build-out of AI infrastructure. The build-out of AI infrastructure brings together the capabilities of our real estate, energy, infrastructure and credit businesses, each a leader in their field. At the same time, the rapid adoption of AI is driving tremendous demand for electricity. And while constraints across the grid are limiting how quickly new supply can come online, the result is a widening gap between insatiable power and compute demand with constrained supply.

Together, these trends are creating one of the most compelling investment opportunities we've seen in years and precisely the type of opportunities our scale enables us to pursue without taking undue risks. We are bringing together power generation, transmission, land entitlement skills, financing and long-term customer relationships to deliver solutions that few organizations can provide. Our recent $100 billion announcement to build one of the world's most advanced AI factories in Kentucky in partnership with the U.S. government illustrates this well. We were selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to repurpose a federally-owned industrial site and deliver a major world-class AI campus, drawing on our certainty of execution, our ability to bring together land, power, transmission and capital at scale. This is federal land that has DOE uses on it, and as a result, today needs few approvals to move forward.

Turning now to Westinghouse. This is another example of how these long-term trends are creating new opportunities. No business we own today is more directly positioned to benefit from the growing importance of energy addition and energy security than Westinghouse. Governments and companies increasingly want reliable, domestically available generation. Baseload nuclear due to its scale is really, really important. We are supporting the next wave of nuclear deployment.

Building on our strategic partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce announced last year, the U.S. Department of Energy recently announced a further $17.5 billion financing commitment to us alongside our utility partners to acquire long lead time items to advance the production of the reactors we're going to build. It will reduce the time periods dramatically. It will shorten development time lines and establish a repeatable model for large-scale nuclear construction. Westinghouse is in various stages of construction today on 14 reactors, has line of sight on another 40 and another 100 coming. This is part of a $6 trillion industry build-out where we hold a very dominant position.

Turning to our capital base. It's also continuing to evolve. One of the most significant developments today is the role of private markets and retirement savings. Most individual savers have had very little access to private assets with their savings invested largely in public stocks and bonds, even as the investment world has evolved over the last 20 years. Businesses today are staying private longer, meaning a growing share of the world's essential assets and value creation now sits outside the public markets.

As a result, retirement savers are increasingly missing out on a meaningful share of global value creation and only participate once meaningful value has already been created. Recent changes to U.S. federal policy are beginning to open the door to greater private market participation in retirement portfolios. Savers will soon have access to diversification, resilient cash flows, inflation-protected assets and all these types of investment products. This will become another important source of long-term duration capital for us, further growing and diversifying our capital base.

I will end by saying that we look forward to seeing all of you at our Investor Day on September 17 in Manhattan. Additional details are on our website. As always, thank you for your continued support and interest in Brookfield.

I'll now turn the call over to Nick.

Nicholas Goodman

Thank you, Bruce, and good morning, everyone. We delivered another quarter of strong financial results, supported by broad-based momentum across the business. Distributable earnings, or DE, before realizations were $1.4 billion or $0.61 per share for the quarter, representing an increase of 15% per share over the prior year quarter. Over the last 12 months, DE before realizations was $5.7 billion or $2.39 per share.

Total DE, including realizations was $1.5 billion or $0.66 per share for the quarter and $6.2 billion or $2.61 per share over the last 12 months. Starting with our operating performance. Our asset management business delivered another strong quarter, generating distributable earnings of $740 million or $0.31 per share in the quarter and $2.9 billion or $1.24 per share over the last 12 months.

Fundraising was a record $77 billion during the quarter, reflecting continued strong demand across our flagship and complementary strategies as well as growth. This included $17 billion raised across our flagship strategies, [ $7 billion ] for the 7 vintage of our private equity strategy and $9 billion for the sixth vintage of our infrastructure strategy. Both are progressing well and are on track to be the largest in their respective series.

Fee-bearing capital increased by 19% to $672 billion at quarter end, driving a 20% increase in fee-related earnings compared to the prior year quarter. With the momentum we have across the platform, we are on track for what should be another record fundraising year. In July, we completed the acquisition of Oaktree, bringing the organizations fully together, further enhancing the scale and breadth of our global platform and strengthening our ability to serve clients with a broader range of investment solutions.

Turning briefly to Wealth Solutions, which Sachin will cover in more detail in his remarks. The business generated distributable earnings of $480 million or $0.20 per share in the quarter, an increase of 23% compared to the prior year quarter and $1.8 billion or $0.75 per share over the last 12 months. Results were driven by strong organic inflows, growth in net investment income and the first full quarter contribution from Just Group. We originated $5 billion of annuity sales during the quarter.

Total insurance assets increased to over $190 billion, driven by positive net annuity flows and the closing of Just Group, which added $45 billion of insurance assets. Our North American business' investment performance remained strong. During the quarter, we deployed $5 billion into real asset investments, contributing to an average net investment income yield of 5.7%. Disciplined underwriting in our P&C business contributed to a 99% combined ratio, lowering our overall cost of funds, supporting a gross spread of 2.2% for the quarter, further contributing to strong results on our invested capital.

Turning to our operating businesses. They continue to generate resilient and stable cash flows with distributable earnings of $361 million or $0.15 per share in the quarter and $1.5 billion or $0.65 per share over the last 12 months. Underlying performance across our infrastructure, energy and private equity businesses remained strong, supported by long-term secular trends, increasing demand for their essential products and services. Our real estate business also continues to perform well. The operating fundamentals across our high-quality portfolio remain very strong. Our super core and core plus portfolios finished the quarter at over 95% occupancy, supported by continued tenant demand and very limited new supply.

In our retail portfolio, nearly 1 million square feet of leases commenced during the quarter at rents 12% higher than those expiring. In office, we signed 4.5 million square feet of leases globally with average net rents 19% above expiring levels. That is worth emphasizing. Net rents on the leases we signed during the quarter were 19% higher than those expiring, providing meaningful embedded cash flow growth as these tenants take occupancy. A few highlights include: in the U.S., we signed 1.3 million square feet of leases at rents 25% above expiring levels, including 2 leases totaling 673,000 square feet at One Liberty Plaza, a core plus asset at net rents 44% above expiring levels.

In Canada, we signed over 700,000 square feet at rents more than 70% above expiring levels, including a 433,000 square foot lease at Bay Adelaide Centre, a super core asset at rents more than doubling expiring levels. And our leasing pipeline remains strong with more than 2 million square feet under active discussion. This leasing activity continues to demonstrate the strength of demand for high-quality real estate and the advantage of owning the best assets in supply-constrained markets.

Turning to monetization. Transaction activity continued to build momentum through the first half of the year. We executed approximately $40 billion of asset sales year-to-date, returning capital to our investors and crystallizing attractive returns. A few notable examples include: in infrastructure, we completed the IPO of Cyxtera, our U.S. colocation data center platform, generating approximately $1.2 billion of proceeds at an attractive valuation.

We retain a 64% interest in the business, and we'll continue to participate in future value creation as demand for AI infrastructure accelerates. In real estate, we sold One Churchill Place, a premier office tower on our estate at Canary Wharf for GBP 750 million, further demonstrating the recovery of high-quality real estate. And in private equity, we completed the $650 million sale of Multiplex, our construction business. During the quarter, we realized $121 million of net carried interest into income and ended the quarter with $12.5 billion of accumulated unrealized carried interest.

Shifting now to capital allocation and liquidity. We continue to return capital to shareholders during the quarter through a combination of dividends and share repurchases totaling $270 million. We maintain a disciplined approach to capital allocation. In addition to reinvesting in our existing businesses and completing the acquisition of Oaktree, we repurchased approximately $580 million of BN shares in the open market year-to-date at an average price of $42 per share, keeping us on pace with the repurchases of the last 2 years. Capital markets remain constructive. And year-to-date, we have completed $130 billion of financings across the franchise.

Notably, at the corporation, we issued CAD 750 million of 10- and 30-year notes the transaction was 4x oversubscribed, underscoring strong market demand and the strength of our credit profile. We continue to maintain a strong liquidity position and a conservatively capitalized balance sheet and with record deployable capital of $210 billion, we have substantial flexibility to invest at scale as attractive opportunities arise. Bringing it all together, we had a very strong and active second quarter.

Earnings grew 15% per share, fundraising reached record levels, transaction activity continued to build, and we completed several important strategic initiatives that will continue to support our growth. We entered the second half with strong momentum across each of our businesses and are very well positioned to continue growing earnings and compounding intrinsic value per share.

Before I hand over to Sachin, I want to briefly touch on the simplification transaction. Shareholders approved the transaction at our annual meeting on July 16, marking an important step in bringing our insurance and investment capabilities together in a simpler and stronger structure. Shareholders who are in nontaxable accounts or in all jurisdictions other than Canada and the U.K. do not need to do anything. You will receive new shares in your account once the transaction is complete.

For taxable Canadian and U.K. shareholders who wish to complete their share exchange on a tax-deferred basis, the election period is now open and additional information is available on our website for you to do this. With that, I am pleased to confirm that our Board of Directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.07 per share payable at the end of September to shareholders of record at the close of business on September 14, 2026.

With that, I thank you for your time, and I'll pass the call over to Sachin.

Sachin Shah

Thank you, Nick, and good morning, everyone. With the recent addition of the Just Group, we thought it would be useful to start with an update on the progress we are making in the U.K., then provide an update on our existing businesses and close with how we are thinking about the broader retirement markets.

As always, our objective is to compound capital at 15% plus returns over the long term while maintaining a disciplined approach to risk and generating stable, predictable earnings. Turning first to the Just Group. We are very pleased with the progress since closing the acquisition in April. Just is a high-quality retirement business with capabilities in both the pension risk transfer and retail annuity markets. It gives us meaningful scale in one of the largest and most developed retirement markets globally. It adds another important source of long-duration, predictable liabilities to our business.

Since closing, we have focused on several areas. First, we have sharpened the business around its core pension risk transfer and retail franchises. We exited the early-stage direct-to-consumer initiative and have been simplifying the organization around the areas where Just has an established track record and a real competitive advantage. We have also been working on reducing the cost base. There is more work to do, but the direction is clear. We want a simpler operating model, a more efficient cost structure and a business that can scale.

Second, on the investment side, we have started bringing Brookfield's origination capabilities into the portfolio with a strong investment pipeline for the remainder of the year that we expect to drive further growth into our investment yields, our spreads and the returns on the overall business.

Third, on the liability side, we have adopted the same discipline we apply across the broader Wealth Solutions business. And since closing, all new business has been underwritten based on our targets. From an earnings perspective, Just generated approximately $29 million of earnings in our first quarter of ownership, representing a going-in return on equity of approximately 12%. We think that is a solid starting point with many near-term and medium-term levers to grow the business from here. So taken together, we feel very good about where the business is today.

Just has a strong market position, a large opportunity ahead of it and a clear pathway to improving performance. Our focus from here is execution, keep the business simple, stay disciplined on capital and capture the opportunity in the U.K., which represents over $0.5 trillion of pensions coming to market over the next decade. Turning to our existing annuity platform. We continue to make good progress in expanding the business. On product development, we have continued to broaden our retail annuity offering. Through American National, we continue to launch new products designed to offer pension-like attributes to retirees.

On distribution, we've expanded through bank and broker-dealer channels with several new relationships launched this year and additional channels expected over the balance of the year and into 2027. These new bank channels contributed approximately $200 million of sales during the quarter, and we expect them to become a very meaningful source of growth as they scale. Importantly, despite a competitive market, our spreads remain above 200 basis points. This reflects the discipline we continue to apply in matching the liabilities we originate with attractive investment opportunities and allocating capital only where we can achieve our target returns.

Our U.S. property and casualty platform, Clearbrook, continues to make significant progress. We have derisked the liability profile and focused the business on profitable growth by exiting volatile lines, reducing catastrophe exposure and strengthening underwriting discipline. This has led to a stable and consistent underwriting income. As the P&C market sees pockets of softening, we believe there will be meaningful opportunities to continue scaling this platform, both organically and through M&A. Bringing it all together, demand for retirement products continues to grow as populations age and retirement savings shortfalls widen.

The U.S. fixed annuity market is expected to generate over $300 billion of sales in 2026, which would be the second best year on record, and we expect it will continue to grow in this interest rate environment. Across our key pension risk transfer markets in the U.K., the U.S. and Canada, we see a large pipeline of potential transactions coming to market over the next decade as corporations continue to derisk pension plans and transfer them to insurance companies, which have the capital and expertise to more appropriately manage them.

With our now scaled platform across products, distribution channels and geographies, we are well positioned to allocate capital to the most attractive opportunities while maintaining discipline on the returns we earn. Very few platforms have the depth and capabilities we have to originate attractive capital and the investment franchise to deliver strong risk-adjusted returns over a long sustained period of time. We are excited about the future of the business and the returns it can provide to Brookfield shareholders for years to come, and we continue to see a pathway to more than $300 billion of insurance assets by the end of the decade. Thank you.

With that, I will hand the call over to the operator for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

Our first question comes from the line of Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley.

Perguntas e respostas

Michael Cyprys

Maybe just starting off with a bigger picture question on the AI side as you look across power, data centers, increasingly compute. Curious if you could speak to where you're seeing some of the most attractive risk-adjusted returns there as there's clearly a lot of capital coming into the space. And then maybe more strategically, how much of the opportunity for Brookfield is not just simply owning and developing these assets, but also recycling them into stabilized homes with longer -- lower cost of capital, longer duration pools over time.

Nicholas Goodman

Mike, it's Nick. So listen, you're spot on. We are very excited about the opportunity. We see it as being significant and broad-based, and that touches many different parts of our business being real estate, energy and infrastructure. And the numbers are big right now, but we are, in our view, in the very early stages of what is a very significant investment cycle around AI, digital infrastructure and the whole power build-out that is needed.

And one of the easiest ways to think about it is we are generally just scratching the surface right now of AI adoption and implementation into the world and into business. And so as that takes hold, the need and the scale and the earnings power that's going to be backing that is going to be very significant. And you say where are we most excited, Bruce touched on a couple of the opportunities, just recent examples across data center development opportunities, what we're seeing in our energy business across both renewable and nuclear, but it will be broader across infrastructure and real estate. So I think we see a lot of opportunity.

That being said, given our position in the market, our scale, our access to capital and operating expertise, that affords us the ability to be disciplined and patient. So we are focusing on the highest quality investment opportunities with the highest quality counterparties, looking at stable structures where we can earn attractive risk-adjusted returns. And your second point is right, once we have developed and built these data centers into what will be very stabilized high core assets, they're very attractive for institutional owners for the long term.

We have been recycling as late, as you know, in both Europe and North America, and we would expect to continue that to recycle capital to generate strong returns for our clients, but also to recycle capital to support the next build-out and the future build-out of these platforms. So we expect to see that as we move forward.

Michael Cyprys

And then can I ask a follow-up question? Or should I get back in queue?

Nicholas Goodman

You can ask the second.

Michael Cyprys

And then just on Wealth Solutions with Just Group coming into the numbers here in the quarter. I was hoping you could maybe speak to how you're thinking about some of the near-term versus medium-term levers to expand the $29 million of earnings contribution there, 12%, I think, ROE on that.

How do you expect that performance to ramp as you look out over the next 12 to 18 months versus where do you see that over more of the medium term?

Sachin Shah

Sure. First, on the short term, I alluded to it in my comments around focusing the business, exiting some areas of the business that I would say were more early-stage venture type initiatives, direct-to-consumer, other new lines of business that really just were not profitable. We've shut those down and we've exited them. So that in and of itself is a cost reduction exercise. To frame it, just cost structure is 2 to 3x what some of its competitors are as they bid for the same product.

And in this market, you have to be a low-cost operator so that you're competitive when you're bidding on pensions. So that's our first and foremost focus area. Then I'd say the real big opportunity is bringing in our investment capabilities through Brookfield Asset Management. We source the perfect assets for long-duration liabilities through our real estate capabilities, our infrastructure and our energy businesses. And if you think about pensions, they are different than annuities. there's no lapse risk in a pension.

So when you offer a pension to someone who's retired, you're paying them really until mortality. And to be able to back that with long-duration, very high-quality assets whose cash flows grow over time and who have a real return type profile behind them, it's a tremendous competitive advantage for us. So I think between those 2 things, that will allow us to get the returns up to similar to what you see in our U.S. business. And once you're there, you can capture new business because you can bid more competitively than others in the marketplace.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Bart Dziarski with RBC Capital Markets.

Bart Dziarski

I wanted to ask a follow-up on the AI. So you announced a partnership with NVIDIA to launch a compute financing platform, mobilizing about $500 billion of capital. So congrats on that. And recognizing it's early days, but it would just be great to get your early views on will this be made available to retail and institutional? Maybe a bit more detail on how you're underwriting the downside case and which asset classes could benefit from this partnership?

Nicholas Goodman

Thanks, Bart. So as you know, this is an MOU at this stage that we have signed with NVIDIA pooling together large pools of capital. I'd say generally, we're very excited about the opportunity. If we take a step back, as you know, compute is the critical part of the infra stack supporting AI.

Up until now, our business historically largely focused on new build development. But now we're focused on developing partnerships to finance the chips and accelerate growth with bespoke deals. And when you're building an AI factory, as you know, the GPUs can represent half of the required capital to complete the build. So finding efficient ways to finance the equipment is becoming increasingly important. We've been doing -- we've been working with NVIDIA closely for the last 18 to 24 months, a number of partnerships, a host of initiatives, including a recent transaction in Korea.

And we're building a real solid pipeline of investment opportunities, and the opportunity is very attractive and access to a large pipeline. And to your question on risk, it's an attractive risk profile. We maintain focus on contractual cash flows, counterparty quality and generating attractive risk-adjusted returns that are ideal for our institutional clients and retail clients as they look to invest alongside us into strategies, but that is part of the catalyst for starting the AI fund because these types of opportunities are ideal for that capital and the return that's looking for partnering with different parts of Brookfield.

Bart Dziarski

Great. Very helpful. And then on Brookfield Wealth Solutions. So Sachin, you talked about seeing meaningful opportunities for both organic and inorganic ways to scale the business, especially on P&C with the softening pricing cycle.

So could you just maybe talk through the latest view on the inorganic side? How are those conversations evolving? What you're seeing out there as you look to scale BWS further?

Sachin Shah

Sure. I touched on P&C in the prepared remarks. that market is softening pretty rapidly, both along property lines and casualty lines. And we're seeing that really across the board in particular, in the specialty markets.

I think what that will lead to over the next 36 months is there will be platforms that either need capital, in particular, if they have too much cat exposure or if they have extended themselves too far in terms of aggressively pursuing new business, and they'll need capital or there will be great businesses who are just unable to grow because they have to be super patient and being part of our overall apparatus of Brookfield could be very helpful to them, in particular, because we can drive the investment side of that business or those businesses.

So I just think the next 36 months in the P&C side will be very interesting. Some players will get caught out as markets soften. And for us, that could represent a meaningful opportunity to partner with somebody, bring capital, bring investment expertise and really then drive that business going forward. On the annuity and pension side, we are focused today on several things. One is much more organic growth, both in just in the U.K., which I discussed. But in the U.S., we have a leading franchise in the IMO market. We sell -- we're the strongest seller of retail annuities through IMOs, but we're not really advanced in the bank and broker-dealer market, which represents 60% of U.S. sales of annuities.

So our ability to get on to these platforms in this last 12 months and continue to get on to more platforms over the next 12 months just will open up new markets for us and scale our program to be able to sell more annuities to a wider audience. So we're making tremendous progress in that regard, but I'd say it's more of an organic growth story in the U.S.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Cherilyn Radbourne with TD Securities.

Cherilyn Radbourne

As you know, concerns have been raised about circularity in the deals underpinning AI investment industry-wide. So I'd love to get your perspective on how much of that is perceived versus real and how Brookfield is staying disciplined with its counterparties and contract structures?

Nicholas Goodman

Cherilyn, it's Nick. I think when you look again at the cash flows being generated by these transactions and the scale and the potential of the earnings that will be realized over time as compute is increasingly adopted into business, we have conviction that working with the highest quality hyperscalers, offtakers, chip providers is an attractive risk profile for our business.

And I think that a lot of what is happening is integrated and there is a lot of synergies between the different counterparties working together. But we believe we can invest around this with the right risk controls. When we look at the relevance of the contracts we're signing, the revenue on an overall percentage of what we're doing, we have very diversified businesses. This is a strong driver of growth today, but we still have a broad infrastructure platform, a very broad energy platform and a very broad real estate platform.

So I think we believe that the risk is well managed. We've been very active in capital recycling, and we've been very focused on the highest quality counterparties in the highest quality projects with the right contractual protections. So I think we believe that we are not really stepping out from our historical focus on risk management and earning attractive returns while taking on moderate amounts of risk, but we can do it at scale here, which is what is the most exciting part.

Cherilyn Radbourne

That's really helpful context. And then maybe this is 1,000 feet. But as you grow the insurance business, which hedges interest rate sensitivity elsewhere in the business, how do you think about your interest rate exposure and how that evolves over time?

Sachin Shah

Cherilyn, I'd say there's 2 models out there. There's the passive model where you just match your assets and liabilities and you don't worry about rate risk to a certain degree, all you worry about it, but you get my point.

And then there's a more active model where you, from time to time, understand where you are in the rate cycle. We got into this business 5, 6 years ago because we were at historically low levels of rates, and we understood that. And we understood that, that was an asymmetric opportunity. At that time, we kept meaningful exposure to rising rates by shortening our asset book, lengthening our liability duration and really keeping that exposure for the benefit of Brookfield shareholders.

Today, I'd say we're much more careful. We're largely matched. Our asset and liability duration is almost entirely matched and cash flows are matched because we're at a point in the cycle where, as you heard from Bruce's opening remarks, there's just a lot of noise in the market, and there's some risk premium built into the rate curve. And therefore, we'll be patient. And once all of this, what I'd call short-term noise comes out, we can see a clear picture, and we'll continue to take views.

But for now, we're matched and we're not taking an aggressive position either way.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Mario Saric with Scotiabank.

Mario Saric

I wanted to touch on your commentary on the importance of scale. You really highlighted on the call as well as in the shareholder letter in terms of the relevance of scale and providing integrated solutions to global relationships. So my question is more pertaining to the incremental benefits from incremental scale from here. Brookfield is already a large organization. Is it missing out on opportunities today because of your size?

And if so, what are the opportunities going forward for Brookfield to increase its big deal market share or become, as you mentioned in the first call, even more frequently?

Nicholas Goodman

Mario, it's Nick. Listen, I think having access to scale, which Bruce said, the scale matters, it's the capital, it's the operating expertise, it's the reliability as a counterparty because what matters most is delivery of these projects when we talk about AI.

So that is giving us access to those incremental projects. And I think that we are very well positioned now to grow with the market as one of the established partners for the build-out. I would say, though, that what that's not doing -- I didn't get all your -- I didn't hear all the question, but that's not eliminating the ability to do smaller transactions at the same time because we build platforms. We have large-scale platforms and those platforms are doing tuck-ins and small acquisitions to add incremental value every day.

So we're operating across the spectrum of deal transactions and all of that tuck-ins and operating platforms that we have all feed into the overall scale of the business and the ability to participate in the large build-out and the large transactions.

Mario Saric

Okay. And then maybe my follow-up just for Sachin. Coming back to the organic growth vis-a-vis the bank broker network expansion. I think you mentioned there was $200 million of sales this quarter.

Can you help frame for us where you believe that can move to once you're at your desired number of relationships, but what is kind of are we in and what is the potential upside?

Sachin Shah

The upside is that we start to see, I would say, half of our sales coming from the bank network and preservation of the sales that we have from the independent marketing organizations. So if you look at the U.S., where we're selling almost $12 billion to $13 billion through independent marketing organizations and little through the bank network, you can see us getting to an additional $10 billion to $12 billion just coming through banks over the next few years.

And that's very meaningful. That would take our current $25 billion a year between pensions and annuities up to $35 billion a year pretty comfortably. And so the opportunity is very meaningful. And for us, it just takes time to season those relationships and make sure that we're providing the necessary support to frontline agents who sell the product.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Ken Worthington with JPMorgan.

Kenneth Worthington

Maybe first on carry. Connor on the Brookfield Asset Management call talked about the pull forward of carry for funds relevant for them, which should benefit you as well. To what extent are you also seeing the pull forward of carry in funds where carry is exclusive to BN? And if you are seeing it, what's sort of the magnitude of the pull forward that you're seeing?

Nicholas Goodman

Ken, it's Nick. I'd say at the BN level, our outlook is largely consistent with what we've talked about recently. We're focusing on the next 12, 24 months when we think about the inflection point of our carry. And in that, the material drivers, as you know, for BN are earlier vintage funds, the earlier vintage infrastructure funds, Oaktree funds being big drivers. And I'd say on both of those, we're making good progress.

And while the second infra fund is smaller than the third, obviously, is less impactful, but it's now worked its way through the preferred return and incremental sales from here will realize carry. The third infrastructure fund is not far behind. We have a number of monetizations coming out of Oaktree and the monetization pipeline is very strong. So we're bullish on the outlook, but it's largely consistentot with what we would have talked about recently.

I would note that there are some funds raised after the BAM spin where BAM is eligible for carry that are outperforming to Connor's comments, and they may realize carry ahead of schedule. But that -- I wouldn't say that's necessarily material to the short-term BN outlook.

Kenneth Worthington

Okay. Perfect. And then just maybe broadly on the outlook of the pension risk market in the U.K. To what extent did the announcement of the Just acquisition impact the new business pipeline? And where does that sort of pipeline for new business stand today maybe relative to prior to the announcement of the deal?

Sachin Shah

For sure, our entry through Just, our acquisition of Just has resulted in the company Just being invited to see and to bid on much more than they ever have. Just the fact that Brookfield is now behind them and that people understand we have the capital and the expertise, I would say for Just, who largely focused on very small pensions, they're now getting invited to all of the larger schemes that are coming to market. That's the good news.

I'd say where we're being very patient is pensions in that market today continue to be bid up to rates that drive a much lower return than we're comfortable with. And so we're being patient. Again, these businesses -- we are not in this market to just grow at all costs. We're being patient in terms of the returns. And so I would say for now, we're seeing pensions trade at values that we're just not comfortable with the returns, but that will ebb and flow. And the good news is we're being invited to all the large options. And when the time is right, the business will scale.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs.

Alexander Blostein

First, I would love to hit on the maybe interplay of the very large AI opportunity, as you described with the balance sheet management. And curious how you guys are thinking about allocating capital at the BN level and to what extent any of the kind of AI opportunity will require more of BN's capital being invested alongside of third-party capital or some other way?

Nicholas Goodman

Yes. I mean, Alex, first of all, I'd say that we highlighted our access to scale capital. And I'd say, as we think about the strategies today, it's largely being funded within the funds with co-invest from very large institutions around the world who have very large appetite for these kinds of transactions given how attractive they are and participating alongside our listed issuers.

So I'd say that's largely how we expect to fund. But as the opportunities become attractive, as you think about the integration of BN and BWS and the scale of capital that we will have available to us, we will have potentially the opportunity to participate alongside the funds. But that's not the base assumption that we have in the plan. This should be largely funded through our client business and through BAM.

Alexander Blostein

Okay. Got you. And then I had a couple of just more specific questions around BWS. So if possible, I would love to run through that. So Sachin, I heard your points around Just and the steps you guys will take to improve the spread. From what it looks like, I think, today on that $85 million, the spread is, I think, below 80 basis points. So just ripping out some of the operational costs as you described, what kind of magnitude of a benefit do you think the spread could get at just over the next kind of like 12 months because rotating the portfolio probably takes a little longer.

So that's kind of the first part. And then on the existing kind of core annuities business, I think the spread is also below 180. I think you mentioned that you guys see spreads above 200. So I'm just curious, is that on new business and that's kind of still the bogey as some of the old business runs off? I'm just trying to reconcile the reported sub 180 to the 200 number you mentioned.

Sachin Shah

Yes. I'll start with your second point first because I think that's a very important concept that I want to make sure people understand. The 180 is just the income spread. It excludes the fact that a large portion of our portfolio is invested in equities, both our funds that are equity-oriented and also public equities. which makes us very different than some of our competitors. We -- and therefore, so much of this business' value will be total return over time. If you just take the unrealized marks on our funds that are invested in equity-oriented strategies, that 180 spread goes to about 220 in the current quarter. And I think we provided some disclosure in that regard.

What I would say is in that -- as we grow our equity base and we start to see equity returns come in closer to the long-term total return of that underlying position, we would assume that spreads would actually go up. We're using the word spread, but the reality is it's more of a total return concept. And therefore, we've been able to continue to outperform the broader market where spreads are much tighter, closer to 100 to 110 basis points.

Moving to Just, I would say there's at least 50 basis points of opportunity to enhance spreads simply by taking costs out of the business. So that will take time. But from the 80, I could see us comfortably adding 50 on top of that. And then the asset rotation program and letting our asset strategy work through the system, and you can see a path to getting close to that 200 basis point spread in that market as well.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Jaeme Gloyn with National Bank.

Jaeme Gloyn

A quick one just on the BBUC shift from BN to BWS. Can you just talk about the benefits to each of the companies of shifting a portion of that holding?

Nicholas Goodman

Jim, it's Nick. Yes, this is just -- as you know, we have lots of investments on the BN balance sheet that can be attractive for pools of capital within insurance. We have moved BBU shares across in the past, [ Bev ] shares, BIP shares and they've actually performed incredibly well for the insurance accounts. So this is just a continuation of -- we have almost a ready-made investment pipeline for insurance accounts that can be highly attractive. And at certain times, we may choose to move them over and let the policyholders benefit from the great returns.

Jaeme Gloyn

Okay. Great. And then in Bruce's letter, a couple of mentions of index inclusion. Do you feel like you've done enough at this stage? Or are there other strategies or initiatives you could take to achieve that outcome?

Nicholas Goodman

Well, the first thing I would say is that we've now given ourselves optionality that did not exist before. So under our current structure, we had 0 path to U.S. index inclusion. I would say now being in domicile of convenience and with the fact pattern around our business, we have the option.

And I think it will take time, but as rules emerge, as they evolve and our footprint of our business evolves, I think there are things that could be done over time to enhance it that we can do and that the rules as they evolve will accommodate our business. So I think we have the optionality today. It will take time, but it should be a significant positive as we move forward if we can materialize it.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Etienne Ricard with BMO Capital Markets.

Etienne Ricard

Just Group is the latest of the series of acquisitions you've made in Wealth Solutions. When you onboard a new insurance leadership team, how do you make sure the acquired assets meet Brookfield's risk tolerance and that returns are prioritized over volumes?

Sachin Shah

Look, I think the first thing for us is to make sure there's alignment throughout the system. So one, all of the capital that we provide and that goes into these insurance companies comes from Brookfield. So we have complete alignment with policyholders.

Number two, we incentivize management teams to also have that long-term alignment through LTIP programs that look and feel like Brookfield, where there's a long-term focus and the focus is on capital compounding. Number three, we spend time with management teams to make sure that the culture is strong and that the people who are leading these companies align with our culture, which is very value focused.

And I think if you do those things, I know it sounds soft, but if you do those things, then generally good things in the business will start to happen. And we've been fortunate that in all of the businesses that we've acquired, we've been able to execute those simple steps.

Etienne Ricard

In. And to follow up on carried interest. We've seen quite an increase in asset sales in recent years, while the carried interest realizations have not picked up as meaningfully.

So Nick, I'm wondering what are your expectations for asset sales over the next year? And why should it translate into better carry realization?

Nicholas Goodman

Etienne, you're right. The monetizations have been very strong, a testament to the quality of the assets that we own and the value creation plans that we've executed and the breadth of the diversification of the assets we own across asset class, geography, allowing us to execute many sales at the same time to different investor pools. So the monetization progress is good. But as you know, the way we realize carry is on a very conservative basis. And we realize that on a fund-by-fund basis, not investment by investment. And that just means it takes time. These are large funds.

We have to return all of the original capital to investors. We have to work our way through the preferred return. And when there is limited to no risk of clawback, we start to realize carry. And that's why we've talked about an inflection point because it takes about -- it takes time to compound that return to return the capital at scale and then to start realizing carry, and we're getting closer to that point, as I mentioned earlier, in our earlier vintage infrastructure funds and our Oaktree funds. And then it should be -- continue to scale as we then work through even larger funds as we move forward.

Operator

As there are no more questions, I will now turn the call back to Ms. Katie Battaglia for closing remarks.

Katie Battaglia

Thank you, everybody, for joining us today. And with that, we'll end the call.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.