Stockchase Opinions

Chris Blumas Brookfield Corp BN-T TOP PICK Apr 16, 2025

Typically, his Top Picks include a US name, a Canadian name, and an income name. Today all 3 picks are Canadian compounders.

Brookfield is a phenomenal, high-quality company. Will benefit from current environment. Roughly $160-170B of client capital to invest. Can grab businesses that come under pressure. Easy way for you to be counter-cyclical, sleep at night, they do the work for you. Yield is 0.7%.

(Analysts’ price target is $92.77)
$67.480

Stock price when the opinion was issued

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COMMENT
A preferred share coming close to reset with a yield above GIC rates.

BN.PF.H is what you're looking for. It's going to reset at the end of the year. Reset spread is 4.17. Add 4.17 to the BOC 5-year bond yield today (2.7%). That gives you almost 7% as the reset rate at the end of the year, if the BOC rate were to remain stable. One to consider, he owns a bunch. Brookfield's a very solid company.

TOP PICK

Prefers owning this to any of the subsidiaries. It's more diversified and very cheap. That's where management is and where they have their money; he always likes to invest next to the guy who's running the show. Trophy offices. About 85% of the value of the subsidiaries is baked into BN stock. Insurance segment. Probably 40% undervalued today. Lots of opportunity. Growing ~15% a year. Yield is 0.69%.

(Analysts’ price target is $92.07)
BUY
BN vs. BAM vs. BIP.UN

The closer you are to the top of the house in the Brookfield framework, the closer you are to the CEO and the Board, and the incentive structures tend to favour them. Doesn't have the great yield, but has upside. BAM offers you the yield and, broadly speaking, growth aspects. He'd encourage you to stay near the top of the house, depending on how much yield you need for your life circumstances.

For BIP.UN, it's not really whether Mark Carney got elected or not, or tariffs, because it's a global business. Infrastructure, toll roads, coal, etc. Very diversified. 

TOP PICK

He chose this name because he's scared. He's looking for blue-chip names. Buying back solidly. Trades at 8% discount to forward NAV. Seeing growth accelerating. Fundraising demand still good and on track. Not expensive at 12.4x price to AFFO, and growth forecast about 17.6x. 

Price to growth is really compelling. Value and growth. Powerful tailwinds. Even if the economy goes bad, you're going to be OK. (Note that price target is in USD, for the NYSE-listed version.) Yield is 0.63%.

(Analysts’ price target is $65.29)
BUY

The love of his life, which they've owned for quite a long time. Likes that it collects giant fees from diversified assets. His preferred play on alternative assets. Headwinds from tariffs and regulations, but those are dissipating at the moment. 

Terrific track record long term, despite this year being tough. Compounded shareholder return of 18% over last 30 years. Growth will come from selling new products to retail investors in insurance, real estate, private equity. Volatile markets will work in its favour.

BUY

Long-term winner. Chart looks great. You can see the tariff tantrum, and now the stock looks as though it wants to push higher. A Canadian stalwart. Great long-term buy and hold. Corrections are always a great time to add.

WAIT

It is a storied asset manger and owns many baby Brookfields. He really likes the management and company but the stock is expensive. As a value investor he wants a decent sized correction before buying. He has concerns re the private equity space, in particular defaults or lower valuations, which would affect asset management fees.

PAST TOP PICK
(A Top Pick Jun 17/24, Up 45%)

One year ago it was trading at a discount to NAV and has ownership in 4 publicly traded subsidiaries. The prior 10 year return to shareholders was 15% and you can expect the core distribution earnings to be about 17%. It is fine to start accumulating for the long term or you could wait for a pullback. It is a long term success story.

BUY

Complex organizational structure and accounting oddities often confound traditional ratio analysis when trying to gauge valuation. You can look at PE (14x) or P/B (2.2x). His team doesn't rely on those metrics. More simplistic and reliable would be the dividend yield; paid for a long time, commitment to growing.

Dividend yield right now is about 0.6%, so on that basis the shares are expensive. For context, over the last decade the average has been 1.5%. So instead, you want to try to identify a secular business trend that will lead to a rerating. He thinks that's the case here. Global leader in private market alternative investments. Benefiting from secular trend away from just investing in publicly traded stocks and bonds. Great leadership.