The Financial Post reports in its Thursday edition that Bruce Flatt was clear with his prediction: The secondary market for private equity, real estate and infrastructure was ready to take off, and it could become a $50-billion business for Brookfield Asset Management (all figures U.S.). A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post says that five years after the Brookfield chief executive officer's forecast, the boom has come and Brookfield has largely missed out. It has been on the sidelines as rivals rush to raise funds to buy chunks of portfolio companies from other buyout shops or offer their investors a way out. The firm had planned to debut a dedicated fund that would invest in companies owned by other private equity firms. But that strategy never got off the ground. The investment manager had decided to break into private equity secondaries by taking over a business from Deutsche Bank's asset management unit in 2023, acquiring DWS Group's $550-million fund. Brookfield ultimately merged the DWS unit with another strategy rather than scaling it up on its own, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the details are private. Deals have slowed generally after U.S. interest rates increased starting in 2022.