Everything Bruce Flatt said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Flatt: Brookfield has avoided irreparable harm over 35 years by limiting mistake size
“When we're wrong, where are we wrong? We're wrong in increment, in small ways which aren't, have, you don't know about them very much, because in the last 35 years, we've been right generally on the large things, and nothing has been irreparably harm harmful, …”
Flatt: Simultaneous massive transactions amount to an unintended cycle bet
“If everybody made a massive transaction at the same point in time, what we're probably betting on is a cycle. And you may not want that. And if you do, you better knowingly do it.”
Flatt: Brookfield uses osmotic learning and has no private offices
“In general, we don't do training. Quote, unquote. But every day, every single person in this organization is learning. And it's a learned by osmosis process. We have open plan in the place, including myself, never had an office and people talk to one another a…”
Flatt: Flawed investment decisions are far worse than mistiming the market
“The unsuccessful ones are harder to identify what happened. But often there are reasons why, and it either comes down to execution. You didn't execute properly. You had you missed time the market. Or you just made a bad, bad, flawed investment decision. And th…”
Flatt: Investment committee financial models are never entirely accurate forecasts
“The only thing I'd tell you about a model that's produced in an investment committee is it will never be exactly what happens.”
Flatt: 50% of Brookfield's current investment asset classes did not exist 20 years ago
“50% of the things that we invest in today did not exist as an investment asset class for investors like us 20 years ago.”
Flatt: Brookfield owns a substantial portion of India's telecom towers
“We own all of the telecom towers, not all, but we own a very substantial portion of the telecom towers in India. They deliver all the phone and wireless infrastructure. To many individuals in India, and that was originally built by Reliance Industries Geo. We …”
Flatt: Brookfield successfully took a $6B unindexed shipping company private
“So we took a large container shipping company private. It had one analyst and nobody following it. It fit in no indexes. It was a six billion dollar company. And we took it private and it's been an exceptional investment.”
Flatt: Major productivity transformations take longer but deliver larger impact
“Usually, usually it happens in greater amounts, but it takes longer periods of time, and takes slower than you think it would happen.”
Flatt: All Brookfield Balance Sheet Debt Is Single-Asset Financing
“All of our financing is asset by asset by asset by asset or business by business by business by business. So any debt that we accumulate onto our consolidated balance sheet is just the accumulation of a whole bunch of single asset financings.”
Flatt: Brookfield partners cannot pass controlling shares to family members
“When we leave the partnership, our shares that if you're an owner or controller of the partnership, they go away, they go on to somebody else. So nobody's family will ever will ever be part of this partnership. It's a meritocracy.”
Flatt: Brookfield's worst mistakes happen when pushing into adjacent unfamiliar areas
“Sometimes we're pushing Out into areas which are adjunct to what we do, and we probably shouldn't have. We really didn't know what we were doing. And not often does it happen, but once in a while.”
Flatt: Managing $1T prevents Brookfield from investing in small countries
“Like, we can't have small countries, just not because they're not good, they're not a good place to invest, it's just not meaningful to us. When you have a trillion dollars things, The benefit or the, or the- Drawback. Yeah, the drawback is that is that you ca…”
Flatt: Brookfield makes mistakes with proprietary capital before taking client funds
“We want to make mistakes with our own money first, not with others. Our reputation with our clients is the only thing we have.”
Bruce Flatt
the Knowledge Project 17