The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that institutional investors are losing interest in public markets around the world as their war chests for private deals get increasingly larger, Brookfield chief executive officer Bruce Flatt said Wednesday. The Globe's Jameson Berkow writes that speaking at a panel discussion held by the Ontario Securities Commission debating the question, "Do public markets matter any more?," Mr. Flatt said public and private markets are symbiotic and that Brookfield operates in both. However, he also predicted that within the next 10 years, more than 30 institutional investors around the world -- each with more than $1-trillion (U.S.) in assets -- will opt for private markets. "They have to have things in the public markets, but the sums are so vast that they don't want the distractions of the public markets on a day-to-day basis for all their capital, they just want to buy businesses," Mr. Flatt said. "Public markets is just the ownership of a fractionalization of a business, but most people get confused because they think it is a casino. That is why the private markets continue to grow. These large funds . . . don't want to have the distractions of the public markets."