rubic: I might suggest another check for potential chicanery, what might be called
the "No Bad Quarters" test. Most businesses are going to have good and bad
times throughout the cycle. If a business hits their numbers *every* quarter
over a period of time (Madoff, Enron, WorldCom, GE), it might be worth examining
how they've managed such consistency.

ultimatespinach: So, no, I was not imagining a concerted conspiracy by top management to engage in illegal acts. I was imagining subsidiaries of subsidiaries in some far-flung places pushing the envelope to produce the impressive numbers Brookfield publishes like quarterly clockwork.

All good points. I don't disagree. Arthur Anderson paid the price for Enron & Worldcom. I doubt present day Deloitte, EY, KPMG or PWC would dare repeat the behavior. Time will tell. One of them is most likely Brookfield's auditor.

Meanwhile, all we can do is look at the numbers and look for telltale signs of potential chicanery. Below are distributable earnings for the period ending June 30 for the last 6 years. Numbers include realized carried interest and disposition gains. For consistency, numbers are for BN and BAM combined and don't take the split into account.

We can't conclude much from just one metric. Nevertheless, FWIW, at least in this set of numbers, I don't see clockwork or Madoff!. Stock price has followed DE. It plunged in 2022. YTD we are up a modest 8.63% due the recovery in DE.

TTM ending Jun 30 (millions)

Year	DE	% change

2018	2353
2019	2702	14.83%
2020	3009	11.36%
2021	6254	107.84%
2022	4911	-21.47%
2023	5205	5.99%

I recommend watching the Madoff series on Netflix.