Should You Invest in Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (BAM)?

Third Avenue Management, an investment management firm, published its “Real Estate Value Fund” first quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A return of +10.70% was recorded by the fund for the Q1 of 2021, outperforming the benchmark, FTSE EPRA NAREIT Developed Index, that rose to +6.11% for the same period. You can view the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a peek at their top bets for 2021.

Third Avenue Management, in its Real Estate Value Fund Q1 2021 investor letter, mentioned Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (NYSE: BAM), and shared their insights on the company. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is a Toronto, Canada-based asset management company that currently has a $71.2 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, BAM delivered an 11.00% return, extending its 12-month gains to 40.95%. As of May 11, 2021, the stock closed at $45.81 per share.

Here is what Third Avenue Management has to say about Brookfield Asset Management Inc. in its Q1 2021 investor letter:

"Brookfield Asset Management (a Canadian-based alternative asset manager with leading positions in property, infrastructure, renewable energy, private equity, and credit) announcing that it had agreed on terms to acquire the remaining 40% of its publicly-traded real estate subsidiary (Brookfield Property Partners) that it didn’t already own for a mix of cash, stock, and preferred equity. Should the deal close later this year, Brookfield’s management team (which is led by one of the preeminent capital allocators CEO Bruce Flatt) will expand upon its esteemed track record of contrarian investing by increasing its exposure to premier office and retail assets at a time when both property types are out-of-favor. In addition, the company seems likely to enhance its ability to extract value from the properties through active management, non-recourse financings, and densification efforts with the platform fully-controlled and placed alongside some of its other verticals (e.g., Brookfield Residential)."

Pixabay/Public Domain

Our calculations show that Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (NYSE: BAM) does not belong in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2020, Brookfield Asset Management Inc. was in 38 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 35 funds in the third quarter. BAM delivered a 10.63% return in the past 3 months.

The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 231.2% between 2015 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 126 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Here you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best innovative stocks to buy to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website:

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.