Brookfield Renewable: M&A Culture & Transaction Structures

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Perhaps we could start with how you arrived at Brookfield and the evolution of your role and responsibilities there, who you were working with, and start from there and then evolve from that base.

The advantage of being associated with Brookfield and having the credit capacity and commitments that Brookfield can secure is that it's not challenging for them to attract capital. This puts them in a position to participate in massive transactions where there are only one or two bidders. For instance, take Isagen, which was a deal involving all the Colombian hydro assets. It was a competition between themselves and another bidder. At that level, due to the high price tag, Bruce Flatt, the CEO, actually became an active participant. This was a departure from past practices, but it was a necessary step given the scale of the deal.

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Yes, can we just return to something you mentioned a few times, which is that they attract capital like no one else. Could you explain that from scratch, assuming we don't know anything about Brookfield? What are the factors that enable them to do this?

Any asset that was acquired would be leveraged. They have a strong relationship with the capital markets community, including life insurance companies and sizable banks around the world. When I was with them, we had a renewable credit facility that consisted of 20 different banks from around the world. They have limitless capital to deploy. The challenge every year is to find acquisitions. They have teams of people looking for distressed assets and seizing those opportunities.

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We're discussing the Chief Investment Officer of the Renewable Group, correct, and the Chief Financial Officer of the Renewable Group as well.

Yes. That situation changed, likely the year before I left. When I was there, we went through approximately five different restructurings in how we dealt with things, primarily due to the sheer volume of work. What it eventually evolved into was having an executive team for Canada; by country, essentially. Initially, it was going to be by continent, but then I believe they further subdivided it by country. For instance, you would have a CFO and a CEO of Brookfield Renewable Canada. The idea was to assemble an M&A team at the country level, enabling them to move more swiftly due to the increasing number of opportunities. Consider the investment climate a few years ago when cash was incredibly cheap. It was an attractive prospect. They continuously identified opportunities.

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