Brookfield Asset Management is planning to raise and invest $5 billion in the Retail Revitalization Program, a fund created to help retailers recover from the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. The program, which will be run by Brookfield and its institutional partners, will focus on making non-control investments in retailers.
“This initiative is being designed to assist medium sized enterprises in getting back on their feet,” said Ron Bloom, leader of the Retail Revitalization Program and Managing Partner and Vice Chairman of Brookfield’s Private Equity Group in a statement. “We believe this is a critical component to getting the economy moving again, and we would like to partner with companies and entrepreneurs that can draw on our capital and expertise to stabilize and grow their business.”
The Retail Revitalization Program will focus on retail businesses that have $250 million or greater in normalized revenues and have been operating for at least two years. The funding could be vital to the survival of mall-based retailers that were already struggling before the pandemic forced them to close their stores.
“[Neiman Marcus and JCPenney] were going into the situation weak to begin with, and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Mickey Chadha, VP – Senior Credit Officer at Moody’s in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “If you look at the weaker players throughout retail who have entered this pandemic, they are all going to come out even weaker, if they do come out at all. We were already seeing overall bifurcation between that haves and have-nots, and it’s just going to accelerate as we come out of this.”
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