Earnings call transcript: Brookfield Infrastructure’s Q2 2025 growth driven by AI investments

Published 31/10/2025, 15:40
Earnings call transcript: Brookfield Infrastructure’s Q2 2025 growth driven by AI investments

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP) reported strong performance in its Q2 2025 earnings call, highlighting a 5% year-over-year increase in Funds from Operations (FFO) to $638.81 per unit. The company emphasized significant growth in its data segment, driven by AI investments, and announced key acquisitions and partnerships. Despite a slight stock decline of 0.79% to $33.67 in premarket trading, the company remains optimistic about future growth, particularly in AI and energy infrastructure.

Key Takeaways

  • FFO increased by 5% year-over-year, with a 9% rise excluding FX effects.
  • Data segment FFO surged by 45%, driven by AI investments.
  • Completed a $9 billion acquisition of Colonial pipeline and a $500 million investment in Hotwire.
  • Stock price fell by 0.79% in premarket trading.
  • Focus on AI-driven infrastructure and energy investments in the U.S.

Company Performance

Brookfield Infrastructure reported robust growth in Q2 2025, with a 5% year-over-year increase in Funds from Operations (FFO), which rose to 9% when excluding foreign exchange effects. The company’s diversified infrastructure portfolio, spanning utilities, transport, midstream, and data, contributed to its strong performance. The data segment, in particular, saw a 45% increase in FFO, underscoring the impact of AI-driven investments.

Financial Highlights

  • Funds from Operations (FFO): $638.81 per unit, up 5% year-over-year.
  • Utilities segment FFO: $187 million.
  • Transport segment FFO: $304 million.
  • Midstream segment FFO: $157 million, a 10% increase.
  • Data segment FFO: $113 million, a 45% increase.

Market Reaction

Brookfield Infrastructure’s stock experienced a slight decline of 0.79% to $33.67 in premarket trading following the earnings call. This movement contrasts with the company’s 52-week high of $35.64, indicating a cautious investor sentiment despite positive earnings growth. The stock’s performance may reflect broader market trends and investor concerns about potential economic headwinds.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Brookfield Infrastructure projects EBITDA growth of $650-$750 million in its Canadian midstream operations from 2024 to 2027. The company is also pursuing $2 billion in organic growth projects and is actively exploring AI infrastructure investments. With a focus on the U.S. and emerging opportunities in Europe and Southeast Asia, Brookfield Infrastructure aims to leverage its leading position in infrastructure investments.

Executive Commentary

CEO Sam Pollock highlighted the company’s strategic focus on AI infrastructure, stating, "We are at the nexus of a lot of this activity around AI-driven infrastructure." He also emphasized the U.S. as a key market, noting, "The U.S. is where the vast majority of the AI deployments are taking place today." These comments underscore the company’s commitment to staying at the forefront of technological advancements in infrastructure.

Risks and Challenges

  • Economic Uncertainty: Potential macroeconomic pressures could impact infrastructure investments.
  • Regulatory Changes: New regulations in key markets might affect operations and profitability.
  • Competitive Landscape: Increased competition in AI and energy infrastructure sectors.
  • Currency Fluctuations: Foreign exchange volatility could influence financial results.
  • Supply Chain Disruptions: Ongoing challenges may affect project timelines and costs.

Q&A

During the Q&A session, analysts inquired about Brookfield Infrastructure’s AI infrastructure opportunities and the strategy behind partial stake sales. The company addressed potential impacts of railroad mergers and explored its approach to energy infrastructure investments, indicating a proactive stance in navigating industry changes and capitalizing on growth opportunities.

Full transcript - Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP (BIP) Q2 2025:

Liz, Conference Call Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Brookfield Infrastructure Partners’ Second Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker’s presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during this session, you’ll need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I’d now like to hand the conference over to David Krant, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

David Krant, Chief Financial Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Thank you, Liz, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Brookfield Infrastructure Partners’ Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. As introduced, my name is David Krant, and I am the Chief Financial Officer of Brookfield Infrastructure. I’m joined today by our Chief Executive Officer, Sam Pollock, and Brian Baker, an Operating Partner responsible for managing our Canadian midstream franchises. Also joining us today are Ben Vaughan, our Chief Operating Officer, and Dave Joynt, our Managing Partner in our transportation business. I’ll begin the call today with a discussion of our second quarter financial and operating results, followed by an update on our capital recycling initiatives. I’ll then hand the call over to Brian, who will discuss the positive outlook for Canada’s energy sector. Finally, Sam will provide an update on our recent new investments and conclude with an outlook for the business.

At this time, I’d like to remind you that in our remarks today, we may make forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks, and future results may differ materially. For further information on known risk factors, I would encourage you to review our latest annual report on Form 20F, which is available on our website. Brookfield Infrastructure had another strong quarter, delivering stable and increasing financial results, as well as making significant progress on its capital deployment and recycling objectives. First, on results, we generated funds from operations, or FFO, of $638.81 per unit in the second quarter, up 5% compared to the previous year. This result improves to a 9% increase when excluding the effects of FX, highlighting the strength and stability of our underlying base business performance.

The increase was primarily driven by strong organic growth above our target range, as well as contributions from tuck-in acquisitions completed in the prior year. Taking a closer look at results by segment, our utilities generated FFO of $187 million, slightly ahead of the prior year. Results benefited from inflation indexation, along with contributions from approximately $450 million of capital added to the rate base. The strong underlying performance was partially offset by the sale of our Mexican-regulated natural gas transmission business that closed in the first quarter of this year. Moving to our transport segment, FFO was $304 million. After adjusting for capital recycling initiatives and foreign exchange, results were slightly ahead of the prior year as well.

The solid underlying performance was supported by high asset utilization at our global intermodal logistics operations, continued volume strength at our rail and port businesses, and increases in both traffic levels and rates on our toll roads. Our midstream segment generated FFO of $157 million, representing a 10% increase over the same period last year, driven by strong organic growth across our franchises. In particular, our Canadian diversified midstream operation performed well due to higher customer activity levels and strong asset utilization. In a moment, Brian will speak to the strong momentum we are continuing to experience across the Canadian midstream operations. Lastly, FFO from our data segment was $113 million, representing a step-change increase of 45% compared to the prior year.

This growth was driven by the contribution from the tuck-in acquisition of a tower portfolio in India completed last year, along with the commissioning of newly built capacity and initiating new billings across our data center platforms. In addition to our solid operating results, we continue to demonstrate strong execution of our capital recycling strategy to self-fund our growth. We have secured $2.4 billion of sale proceeds to date this year, already achieving an annual record for Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, with several incremental sales processes in the queue for the second half of the year. Included in this total are four recently secured asset sales. The first is the sale of a 23% interest in our Australian export terminal, the world’s largest metallurgical coal export facility. We acquired our interest in the business in 2010 and partially exited our investment in 2020 through a public listing in Australia.

Since then, we have achieved several key value creation milestones, including extending contract durations and simplifying our tariff schedule. This sale was completed in June and resulted in approximately $280 million in proceeds. We have realized a cumulative return of 22% and a multiple of capital of four times, while still retaining a 26% interest in the business. The second is the secure sell down of an incremental 60% stake in a 244 megawatt portfolio of operating sites at our European hyperscale data center platform. This results in an additional $200 million in proceeds and finalizes our planned sell down of 90% for total proceeds of approximately $300 million net to BIP. We expect to fully complete the transaction in the third quarter of this year.

The third sale is a further 33% divestiture in a portfolio of fully contracted containers at our global intermodal logistics operations, replicating the prior sale under the same established framework. We expect incremental proceeds to be approximately $115 million, with closing anticipated in the third quarter of this year. We have now sold approximately two-thirds of this portfolio and generated over $230 million in net proceeds to BIP. Finally, we agreed to terms for the partial sale of our UK port operation, which will generate approximately $385 million of proceeds and deliver an IRR of 19% and a 7.5 times multiple of our capital. Since acquiring a 59% interest in 2009, we have successfully completed a comprehensive modernization of the port’s operations, which included expanding the infrastructure to service large vessels and attracting new long-term contracts. These value creating initiatives resulted in EBITDA tripling during our ownership so far.

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year, after which we will own a 25% interest in the business, which allows us to participate in the next stage of growth in a highly strategic infrastructure asset. That concludes my remarks for this morning, and I’ll now turn the call over to Brian, who will highlight the attractive backdrop for Canada’s energy sector.

Brian, Operating Partner - Canadian Midstream, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Canada’s energy industry is benefiting from several trends that support growth and strengthen the outlook for the sector in the coming years. This positive backdrop, in turn, benefits BIP’s three Canadian midstream businesses relating to new investment opportunities, higher levels of organic growth, and more optionality at exit. The Canadian government is focused on energy security and diversifying its trade relationships. This alignment provides support to five key trends that collectively underpin our positive regional midstream sector outlook. The first is the strong demand profile for Canadian energy. Countries are increasingly seeking out diversification of energy supply, which is creating new demand for Canadian energy internationally. At the same time, investment in artificial intelligence is creating massive demand for electricity locally.

For example, Alberta has approximately 12 gigawatts of requested power demand from data centers, up from 200 megawatts only a few years ago. This would represent a doubling of the province’s current peak energy demand. Second is that there is improved end-market diversification. Several key Canadian infrastructure projects have recently been completed to enhance global market access. One of these projects, LNG Canada, is set to ramp up production over the next 12 months, with a potential second phase under consideration that could double its capacity. Several other LNG projects are also on track to add over 5 million tons per annum of export capacity by the end of 2028. Third, Canada has a highly economic resource. Our assets are strategically positioned near some of the most abundant and economically attractive resource basins in North America, with decades of future production potential.

The Montney, for example, has 80 to 90 years of remaining gas resources at a production rate that is almost 40% greater than what is being produced today. These reserves ensure Canada will be cost competitive globally, offering domestic producers attractive returns that incentivize production growth. The fourth is social license. Public support for the responsible development of Canada’s energy resources and associated infrastructure has improved considerably across the country. This presents a significant opportunity to further align the country’s economic interests with its natural resource advantages. It reinforces the case for continued investment in the midstream sector by established operators like us that have a strong operating track record, prioritizing safety and sustainability. Fifth, we are seeing improved investor interest.

Strategics, financial investors, and international investors have all expressed interest publicly to invest more capital in the Canadian energy sector, given the critical nature of Canadian midstream assets, its world-class operating track record, and attractiveness of the resource basin. We expect to directly benefit from all of these trends across our Canadian midstream portfolio, with leading franchises across transportation, gathering and processing, and natural gas storage. Specifically, our natural gas gathering and processing business has experienced a 15% increase in utilization to approximately 85% over the past two years. We have simultaneously executed longer-term contracts that have improved contract duration by more than two years to reach 11 years on average.

Our long-haul transportation pipelines are experiencing a resurgence of new commercial interest, with over CA$90 million of contracted EBITDA coming into service in the next six months, and a large pipeline of new connection opportunities that are all incremental to our underwriting at very attractive build multiples. In the last two years, our North American gas storage operation has benefited from contracted capacity and rates increasing to the highest levels we experienced during our ownership. We expect the lengthening of contract duration and higher rates to persist as storage demand continues to rise in support of new gas production, the build-out of Canadian LNG export capacity, and other sources of demand. These commercial benefits that can be realized with no incremental capital investment will further contribute to the business’s high free cash flow conversion.

These are just several examples of the positive impact that has been experienced so far within our business. We’re equally enthusiastic about the strong growth outlook across the Canadian midstream franchise. At our two largest midstream platforms alone, we expect EBITDA growth of $650 million to $750 million between 2024 and 2027, with further upside related to approximately $2 billion of identified organic growth projects that are being advanced and not currently in our backlog. While these benefits accrue to our in-place franchise, we are excited by the momentum in the Canadian midstream sector as we aim to continue investing to acquire new platforms, develop new infrastructure projects, and ultimately deploy our large-scale and flexible capital at strong risk-adjusted returns. That concludes my remarks for this morning, and I’ll now pass the call over to Sam.

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. As David mentioned in his opening remarks, we’ve deployed significant capital so far this year, securing three new investments, including transactions in our data, transport, and midstream segments. Combined, these acquisitions represent $1.3 billion of capital deployment for Brookfield Infrastructure Partners. Most recently, we signed an agreement to purchase Hotwire, a leading provider of bulk fiber-to-the-home services that develops, builds, and operates regional fiber networks that serve residential communities in key growing markets in the United States. The company employs a differentiated strategy focused on securing bulk fiber agreements with homeowner associations, providing 100% of the residences in the communities with critical fiber services. These services are underpinned by a long-term take-or-pay and inflation-linked contract with a 100% contractual renewal track record.

The Hotwire platform has over 300,000 customers, a significant contracted backlog, and credible growth potential through an addressable market of over 12 million homeowner association units within its footprint. We expect this growth will be entirely self-funded. Closing is expected late in the third quarter, with an equity purchase cost of up to $500 million at our share. In May, we entered into an agreement to acquire a leading railcar leasing platform in partnership with GATX, a best-in-class railcar lessor. The portfolio is the second-largest railcar leasing platform in North America, with a critical, highly diversified, and large-scale transportation network of over 125,000 railcars that are 98% utilized. The business is highly cash-generative, providing stable cash flows that are supported by a diversified and largely investment-grade customer base.

The transaction is anticipated to close in the first quarter of 2026, hopefully a bit sooner, with an equity contribution of about $300 million to our share. This week, and in fact today, we are closing the $9 billion acquisition of Colonial, the largest refined products pipeline system in the United States, with 2.5 million barrels per day of capacity spanning 5,500 miles from Texas to New York. This acquisition was completed at an attractive transaction multiple of around nine times EBITDA. We expect to benefit from a mid-teen cash yield, resulting in a seven-year payback period. Near-term efforts will be focused on business integration and initiating our value creation activities. BIP’s equity consideration is to approximately $500 million. Now, as we look ahead, we are experiencing strong momentum across our business.

We believe the three Ds are stronger than ever, and while we’ve been investing in these transformative trends for many years now, the positive impact on our businesses continues to increase. We see these mega trends, particularly digitalization, as a key driver of the infrastructure supercycle, and we will capture our share of this generational investment opportunity. As we evaluate a large and diverse array of high-quality, value-oriented opportunities across our footprint, the U.S. remains one of the most attractive investment geographies at the moment. However, we’re also seeing opportunities emerging outside the U.S. in many of the geographies where we have a significant presence, such as Europe. In addition to that, several geographies in Southeast Asia where we set up new regional offices.

While the vast majority of our capital recycling and deployment objectives for the year have already been secured, we’re now focused on bringing forward sales and new investments into our pipeline so that we get a head start in next year’s objectives. This concludes my remarks, and I’ll now pass it back to Liz, our operator, to open the line for questions.

Liz, Conference Call Operator: As a reminder, if you’d like to ask a question at this time, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from a line of Cherilyn Radbourne with TD Cowen.

Cherilyn Radbourne, Analyst, TD Cowen: Thanks very much and good morning. Clearly, 2025 has been a very active year for BIP for both new investments and capital recycling, and yet the fundamentals are arguably not that different versus 2024. I’m curious what you think has prompted the acceleration in deal velocity and whether it’s something that’s specific to BIP or something that is happening more broadly across infrastructure, perhaps simply due to a pent-up demand to transact.

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Hi, Cherilyn. Thanks for the question. Yeah, that’s an interesting observation. I agree maybe at the operating level of the various businesses, trends have been consistent with the prior year. I think it’s funny, I think people have had at times more negativity than we’ve had. We’ve generally been positive about operating conditions, and I think we’ve seen that in our businesses over the last couple of years. I think last year there might have been a bit of a low in transaction activity, as you noted. All I can say is it’s probably due to people no longer sitting on the sidelines and coming back into the market to do things because the capital markets were strong last year. They remain strong this year, and there’s always been a fair amount of capital on the sidelines, a lot of dry powder, so to speak.

I think it’s just a matter of investor dynamics where people are now coming back and doing more. All in all, look, we’re very optimistic about the current market, and in particular, we feel we’re at the nexus of a lot of this activity around AI-driven infrastructure, and it’s affecting almost all our businesses in a big way.

Cherilyn Radbourne, Analyst, TD Cowen: Yeah, that’s helpful color. Given the very attractive backdrop that you highlighted for your Canadian midstream businesses, are there opportunities, do you think, to monetize partial stakes in some of those businesses the way that you’ve done very successfully in many of your other businesses?

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Yeah, I’ll start there. Brian or Ben or Dave can always jump in with additional comments. Look, I think there’s always various businesses where we might look to partially sell down and return capital. That’s just the nature of our business, and so there’s always some of those opportunities we’re looking out for. As a whole, though, I would say we’re primarily focused on all the organic opportunities that Brian touched on. I don’t think we’ve seen this level of pent-up demand and opportunities as we see today, and we’re quite enthusiastic about that. To the extent that we can bring partners in to help us fund some of that growth, that makes a lot of sense, and that’s something we’re going to do. We’re seeing a lot of interest in the Canadian midstream sector, both from retail investors but also institutional investors internationally.

I think this is a good time for the Canadian midstream sector.

Cherilyn Radbourne, Analyst, TD Cowen: That’s my two. Thank you.

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Okay, thank you, Cherilyn. Have a nice summer.

Liz, Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from Devin Dodge with BMO Capital Markets.

Devin Dodge, Analyst, BMO Capital Markets: Yeah, thanks. Good morning, everybody. I was going to start with a question on the Intel JV. Look, there’s been some leadership changes. I’m sure you saw that at Intel. It’s brought about maybe a potential shift in the strategy around its foundry business. I believe this includes reviewing the viability of producing one of the products that were intended to be made at that fab in Arizona. Just wondering if you could remind us of the protections that Brookfield has in place for this investment and when you expect it to start generating returns.

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Hi, Devin. Yeah, as we’ve mentioned in the past, and as Intel itself discloses, our arrangement with them is largely financial and contractual in nature. As a result, we don’t take any commercial risks around any capital cost overruns or commercialization of the various products. It’s a relatively simple investment from that perspective. As we look at it, obviously, we take counterparty exposures, but we feel comfortable with the long-term sustainability of the sector as well as Intel’s role as a national champion in the U.S. That’s basically the dynamic. As far as when we see contributions, we should see it as early as the end of next year. End of next year, early 2027, you’ll see it coming through our results. Otherwise, I hope that answers your question.

Devin Dodge, Analyst, BMO Capital Markets: Oh, that was great. Thank you. Second question, I was going to ask you about North American rails. Clearly the Class 1 railroads are pursuing east-west mergers here. How should we think about the potential impact to Genesee and Wyoming?

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Okay, we anticipated that question might come up, and we have our rail expert, Dave Joynt, who looks after our numerous investments in the rail sector, here with us. I won’t dare take a stab at it. He knows much more than I do. Dave, over to you.

Dave Joynt, Managing Partner - Transportation, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Yeah, thanks. Hey, good morning, Devin. It’s Dave here. Maybe I’ll just play out what has transpired and then what the opportunity set is for us. Of course, you would have seen the announcement of the NS-NUP merger, which would create the first transcontinental railroad in the U.S. I think it’s worth just noting that although the transaction’s been announced, it’s still subject to a lengthy regulatory review by the STB. The outcome of that at this point in time is uncertain. What I would say is that the rules that the STB looks at for that merger demand that any merger must be deemed to be pro-competitive in the eyes of customers and shippers across the U.S. As G&W, we operate as the largest short-line operator in the U.S. with over 100 railroads providing first-mile and last-mile access to customers.

We effectively play the Switzerland role in the entire Class 1 network. We can direct traffic to one or multiple carriers, ensuring that customers have great service. All I would say is that we are probably in a unique position to assist in continuing to keep a pro-competitive market in rail. We’ll look forward to, over the coming months, engaging with both the parties of the merger, but also with the Surface Transportation Board on how we can help.

Devin Dodge, Analyst, BMO Capital Markets: Okay, makes sense. Thanks for that. I’ll turn it over.

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Okay, thanks.

Liz, Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from Maurice Choy with RBC Capital Markets.

Maurice Choy, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Thanks, and good morning, everyone. Maybe I’ll start off with a comment you’ve made in the letter about how the U.S. remains one of the most attractive investment geographies at the moment. Just curious if you’ve seen this leading position for the U.S. expand versus other geographies over the last three to six months. Also, conversely, which seems to be the most attractive geography for asset sales would be interesting to know.

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Okay. Maurice, I didn’t quite get the first part of your question. I know it was related to the U.S. as an attractive destination. Were you asking why we think that, or was there another element to it?

Maurice Choy, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: It’s about why you think that, but also whether or not, how the U.S. has gotten more attractive over time versus other countries. Why has that premium view expanded over time?

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Look, it’s relatively simple. It’s not in the sense that we have a preference over the U.S. versus Canada or the UK or Australia. We like them all. It really just happens to be that I mentioned earlier that a large part of our businesses are possibly impacted by the AI infrastructure boom that’s taking place that’s driving the need for power, transmission, all those sorts of things, midstream investments. The U.S. is where the vast majority of the AI deployments are taking place today, and that’s just driving a number of great opportunities that we’re able to take advantage of. We do see that other countries are trying to get their fair share of AI deployment and making sure they have homegrown talent as well and not just be beholden on the U.S. for AI expertise. We expect that there will be significant capital deployed in other countries.

In fact, we’re focused very much on a number of AI factories around the world, particularly in Europe, and I think that’s going to drive future capital deployment for us in those markets. We do see more deployment taking place in other markets. You asked a little bit about divestitures. There’s no—we’re monetizing assets in basically every market around the world today, and we’ve seen an appetite in virtually all markets for high-quality cash flow-generating infrastructure. There’s no real market that I’d say that’s in or out of favor. Most people are just looking for high-quality assets.

Maurice Choy, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Understood. Maybe just finishing up on that same theme about the asset sales, just looking at the four deals that you’ve secured during or subsequent to the quarter. All four transactions were sell-downs, so partial stakes, rather than a full exit that we’ve seen in some past transactions. I wonder whether or not this is just unique to each of the sale processes, or is there something to be said here about buyers wanting to see the continuous participation?

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think each situation has its own unique circumstances. In some cases, there are some buyers who do want to invest alongside an asset manager like ourselves to continue to drive value, and so that’s definitely a consideration. I think also in some markets, scale of the investment dictates that it gets sold in smaller chunks than in one big swoop. It just happens that at this point in time, we just had a couple in a row that were like that. You might see that we have a bunch of others coming down the road where we’ve sold them 100%. I don’t think I should read too much into it at this stage.

Maurice Choy, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Understood. Thank you.

Liz, Conference Call Operator: As a reminder, if you’d like to ask a question at this time, please press star 11 on your touch-tone phone. Our next question comes from a line of Frederic Bastien with Raymond James.

Maurice Choy, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Hi, good morning, guys.

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Hey, Brent.

Maurice Choy, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Deal velocity has picked up materially, as discussed earlier. You mentioned in your prepared remarks that you have incremental sales processes in queue for the second half. Is your pipeline of investment opportunities comparable? I mean, could we see BIP invest another $1.3 billion in assets in the back half?

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: I don’t usually like to make predictions like that. As you recall, we’ve said over the last, I think, two or three quarters that our pipeline was as full as it’s ever been. Obviously, I think that’s borne out. Today, it’s still full, probably not to the same degree as it was in the last couple of quarters. I think we might see a little bit of a drop in scale of transaction flow. Nonetheless, we do have multiple transactions that we’re currently pursuing that I would expect would take place in the next quarter or two.

Maurice Choy, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Okay, thanks for that, Claire. Now, my second question is around the liquidity. You mentioned $5.7 billion at the end of the second quarter if you include the sale proceeds that you’ve secured. Does that include the investments that you’ve also announced? I just wanted to get a bit of clarification as to what your liquidity position would be on a pro forma, all those deals announced.

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Yeah, Brad, it’s Dave here. I can take that one. The $5.7 billion you referenced was as of June 30, 2023. For the total business, at the corporate level, we had $2.4 billion of liquidity. What’s not included in that number is the commitments we’ve made on our new investments, so the $1.3 billion going out, nor the roughly $1.1 billion of sales that we’ve secured. That being the container terminals in Australia, PD Ports, the second sell-down of Triton, and the stabilized data centers. None of those have obviously been collected either. I’d say we have pro forma relatively a similar amount of liquidity as we look for the balance of the year as we do today.

Maurice Choy, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Okay, that’s super helpful. Thanks, guys. That’s all I have.

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Yeah, thanks, Brad.

Liz, Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from Robert Hope with Scotia Bank.

Robert Hope, Analyst, Scotia Bank: Morning, everyone. A healthy portion of the midstream business is gas-focused. However, the market’s view of oil assets has shifted more positively here over the last couple of years. I wanted to get a sense of how, when you’re looking at midstream investments, is it still primarily gas-focused, or could we see some incremental focus on oil assets?

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Hi, Robert. We had the benefit of having Brian on the line from Calgary. I think this is a good question to throw out to Brian. The short answer is we look at both, but Brian can probably add some more color of what he sees as the opportunities for the next little while. Brian, do you want to jump in?

Maurice Choy, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Yeah, thanks, Sam. I think Sam did mention we do continue to look at assets and opportunities across various commodities. I think from an oil perspective, where we probably see the most opportunity today is investments inside our existing portfolio companies. We are seeing continued growth from a number of our oil sands customers and them looking at expansions. It’s creating the opportunity to look at expansions for a number of long-haul systems that we have today. That’s probably where, from an investment perspective, we see the most opportunity from an oil standpoint. We definitely see lots of activity across the sector, really driven by new egress opening up, which has created the opportunity for a number of those customers to continue to grow.

Robert Hope, Analyst, Scotia Bank: I appreciate that. Maybe shifting over to kind of data center investment, you did mention AI factories in Europe. When we’re thinking about the go-forward outlook for your investments there, are we seeing the size of campuses increase, just given the kind of the challenge that we’re seeing in the sector, or should we just continue to assume more of a cluster with a phased expansion?

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: It depends on the customer. I mean, we have a particular skill in a number of businesses for building campus-style data centers, and we have a number of those land banks for those in place. We are a solution provider for the large hyperscalers for some of those significant projects that they’re looking to bring on and particularly find power solutions and bring them to service quickly. Because we are in that world, it is possible that we may bring in some large-scale projects as well. Those would probably be done on a bespoke basis outside of some of our existing platforms, but that’s something that absolutely we’re focused on.

Robert Hope, Analyst, Scotia Bank: Thank you.

Liz, Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from Amber Zhao with Citi.

Ryan Levine, Analyst, Citi: Hi, it’s Ryan Levine at Citi. A couple of questions. In terms of, can you speak more broadly about your general interest in assets that have both renewable assets and more traditional energy infrastructure? If you were to pursue that type of deal, how that would work within the Brookfield umbrella.

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Sorry, Ryan, I missed just one of the words there. What kind of midstream assets were you saying?

Ryan Levine, Analyst, Citi: Not midstream assets. If you’re looking at an energy infrastructure company that had both traditional energy infrastructure assets as well as renewable energy infrastructure assets, how you could evaluate that within the broader umbrella of Brookfield and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners.

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: I see. I guess it depends on the situation. To the extent that it’s a regulated-type utility that might have an integrated business of both conventional renewable assets, that might fall within our purview or maybe our Super Core Fund’s purview. To the extent that it was a business that was similar to some of the opportunities that were being pursued a year or two ago in Australia around transitioning conventional generation businesses, i.e., coal, into renewables, then that’s something that Brookfield Renewable would likely focus on. I think the main takeaway, though, putting aside what pocket of capital would fund a particular investment, is that within Brookfield, all our groups work very closely together.

We’re able to leverage the skill sets that exist within the renewable group as well as the skill sets that exist within our midstream and utility businesses to source, originate, and complete either large or complicated transactions. That’s something that takes place often. Probably, and why your question is maybe a good one, is today we are seeing that nexus where a lot of solutions, particularly for the data center sector, are requiring a combination of both conventional fuels, i.e., gas, combined with renewables to complete the powering of the site. We are doing that. I think we have the best franchise in the globe for that. Hopefully, that will lead to a lot of transactions.

Ryan Levine, Analyst, Citi: Appreciate that. One follow-up. In that vein, there’s been headlines around AES. Is there any comments that you’re able to make or anything you’re willing to share around that potential opportunity?

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: As you know, we don’t comment on transactions, and so there’s nothing I can really say about that particular situation.

Ryan Levine, Analyst, Citi: Okay, thank you.

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Okay, thank you.

Liz, Conference Call Operator: That concludes today’s question and answer session. I’d like to turn the call back to Sam Pollock for closing remarks.

Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: All right. Thank you, Liz. Thank you to everyone who joined our call this morning in the middle of summer. We hope you’ve enjoyed it so far and can take some further time off in August. We look forward to providing you a full update at our annual Investor Day event in Toronto on September 25th. We look forward to seeing many of you there. In the meantime, take care. Thanks.

Liz, Conference Call Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

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