Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (BAM)
hired Raymond Crosby at the company’s investment unit to help
oversee funds for insurers pressured by low interest rates on
their fixed-income portfolios.

Crosby joins from rival Conning Co. where he was
responsible for more than $1 billion in insurance client
investments, Brookfield said today in a statement.

The Brookfield Investment Management unit in May added
Conning’s Mark Whitford and Cesar Avila, a former municipal bond
analyst with Moody’s Investors Service, as Chief Executive
Officer Kim Redding seeks funds from small and mid-sized
clients. The Federal Reserve is keeping benchmark interest rates
in a target range of zero to 0.25 percent, curbing profit at
insurers that invest mostly in bonds.

Insurers “really feel they need experts to help them
generate additional yield,” Redding said in a telephone
interview today. Increased regulation may also encourage
insurers to outsource fund management, he said.

The yield on two-year U.S. Treasuries was 0.458 percent at
the end of June, compared with 2.616 percent three years
earlier. Brookfield’s New York-based investment unit manages
$9.8 billion in bonds for insurers, mostly in investment grade
securities. The Toronto-based parent company also operates power
plants and ports.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Brooke Sutherland in New York at
bsutherland5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dan Kraut at dkraut2@bloomberg.net