Brookfield to pursue spinoff of its investment-management business

Brookfield Asset Management is often compared to the alternative-investment firm Blackstone.Both are public companies with fast-growing market capitalizations measuring in the tens of billions of dollars, nearly $1 trillion each in assets under management, and hundreds of billions of dollars in real-estate investments that anchor their revenue.In a bid to jump-start a chapter of growth for the Toronto investment company, Brookfield is expected to announce during its quarterly earnings presentation on Thursday a restructuring that could transform it into a dealmaking powerhouse rivaling the larger and flashier Blackstone.The company will move forward with a plan to spin off its investment-management business from its roughly $50 billion worth of asset holdings, said three people with knowledge of the plan, which was floated publicly just a few months ago. The building, whose makeover is scheduled for completion next year, has attracted interest from several large office tenants, according to a person with knowledge of the leasing activity at the property, including the Australian bank Macquarie and the investment-management firm Viking Global, which together could take up to 500,000 square feet in the 1.25 million-square-foot tower.Unlike many other large office owners, Brookfield has undertaken efforts to curtail the carbon footprint of some of its recently built properties.