Anuj Ranjan tapped to lead Brookfield’s private equity business

Brookfield Asset Management appointed Anuj Ranjan as CEO of its $140 billion private equity group, replacing the long-serving Cyrus Madon.

The announcement was made in the fourth-quarter earnings update of Brookfield’s listed private equity arm, Brookfield Business Partners. A letter to unitholders said the board approved Ranjan for the top job “as we look toward the next phase of growth.”

Ranjan joined Brookfield in 2006 and has held multiple positions in M&A, private equity and real estate. He also established the firm’s India and Middle East operations. Prior to becoming CEO, he was president of the private equity group, a job he took on in 2022.

Madon, a 26-year Brookfield veteran, has led the private equity group as CEO since 2006. He was named to the newly created role of executive chairman, which includes an ongoing presence on the investment committee.

Ranjan, based in Brookfield’s London office, inherits a much more extensive private equity business than existed just two years ago.

The foundation stone is its flagship buyout strategy, focused on control investing in global business services, industrials and infrastructure services, often in complex deals. In 2023, Brookfield closed its latest vehicle in the series, Brookfield Capital Partners VI, raising $12 billion.

In addition, the group houses special investments, a fairly new strategy providing flexible capital solutions, such as non-control equity. It also houses secondaries, another first-time strategy emerging from last year’s acquisition of the private equity secondaries unit of Deutsche Bank’s DWS.

Finally, the group oversees recent partnerships formed by Brookfield. They include Pinegrove Capital, a secondaries and special situations firm targeting venture capital and technology, launched in 2023 in partnership with Sequoia Heritage, Sequoia Capital’s wealth fund.

Another partnership involves music publisher Primary Wave. Two years ago, Brookfield acquired a minority interest in the company in a deal valued at $2 billion-plus.

Madon co-founded Brookfield’s private equity group in 2001. The debut flagship offering, Tricap Restructuring Fund, later rebranded as Brookfield Capital Partners I, closed in 2003 at $1 billion.

Early on, the strategy emphasized dealflow in the North American mid-market. This changed with Brookfield Capital Partners IV, wrapped up in 2016 at $4 billion to pursue larger-cap opportunities on a global basis.

The private equity group was set for more change in 2020, when Brookfield decided to enter new business lines, such as impact investing, secondaries and technology. Fundraising resulting from related initiatives helped put the firm in the number 18 spot of last year’s Buyouts 100, up from number 26 in 2022.