Brookfield’s real-asset moment

Brookfield is positioning 2026 as a year for real assets, not rate wagers. Higher-for-longer rates, geopolitical fragmentation, and AI-driven demand are reshaping where capital can earn durable returns, the firm said in its 2026 Investment Outlook (pdf).

Infrastructure sits at the center of the playbook: Brookfield is most bullish on digital infrastructure, power, and transport — assets tied to electrification, AI workloads, and critical material supply chain reconfiguration. Long-duration assets and inflation linkage, it says, are back in focus as volatility persists elsewhere.

Rather than chasing application-level top players, Brookfield favors owning the physical backbone of AI — data centers, grids, fiber, cooling, and compute-linked real estate — as energy constraints turn access to power into a competitive moat, reinforcing the infrastructure thesis, which pencils in investments of over USD 100 tn in the sector by 2040.

The trend will filter through to private equity, with Brookfield expecting platforms linked to digitization, services, and transition infrastructure to remain attractive, while capital-intensive and cyclical assets face higher hurdles. PE firms will also likely move away from leverage-driven returns and toward operational improvement and thematic growth.

And to M&A, which it expects to rebound in 2026, partly due to an increase in infrastructure mergers, alongside an easing of financing conditions and sellers reset expectations. Corporate carve-outs and sponsor-to-sponsor transactions are also likely to lead the recovery.

Real estate is stabilizing, unevenly: Brookfield sees a bottom forming across global property markets, with widening divergence by sector. Logistics, multifamily, student housing, and data center-adjacent assets are favored.

The takeaway: Brookfield argues investors who stayed defensive may be underexposed to the next phase of growth. With AI deployment broadening, infrastructure spending rising, and M&A thawing, it sees 2026 as a year where scale and patience regain the upper hand.

Markets this morning-

Asian markets were squarely in the green this morning, with Japan’s Nikkei leading gains after positive inflation data came out.