Carney held $6.8M of Brookfield options before making political run

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(Bloomberg) — Mark Carney held stock options in Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. that were worth $6.8 million at the end of December, but the investment manager’s annual 10-K filing offers little information about how much it paid the man who is now Canada’s prime minister.

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Carney held options on 409,300 shares at the end of 2024 with an average strike price of $37.54, Brookfield said in its annual disclosure. The former central banker was chair of firm until Jan. 16, when he resigned to run for the leadership of the governing Liberal Party of Canada. He won and was sworn in as prime minister on Friday, replacing Justin Trudeau.

Brookfield’s regulatory filing says that three directors — Carney and longtime executives Sam Pollock and Cyrus Madon — received a combined amount of $7.5 million in salaries and cash bonuses, plus a small retirement savings contribution, as employees of the company. But it doesn’t break out how much each man was given.

The unexercised stock options have long expiry dates, in 2033 and 2034. The filing didn’t say whether Carney had to give them up when he left the firm to enter politics, and there’s nothing on Canada’s insider-disclosure system to indicate that he exercised any of them in the first half of January before exiting the company.

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Brookfield didn’t respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson in the prime minister’s office couldn’t be reached for comment late Monday.

The options, if he still holds them, would be worth less today than on Dec. 31, as Brookfield’s share price has fallen more than 11% this year.

Now that he is prime minister, Carney has moved his assets into a blind trust. However, his opponents in the Conservative Party have been pressing him to disclose his assets, arguing that he may have a financial interest in private Brookfield funds or other investments that would place him in a conflict of interest as head of the government. During a news conference in London on Monday, the prime minister sidestepped reporters’ questions about the details of his investments.

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“I’m complying with the rules that Parliament has laid out,” Carney said. “And I will continue to comply with those rules.”

Carney, 60, resigned from his corporate roles when he entered the Liberal race, including a position as chair of Bloomberg Inc.

Chief Executive Officer Bruce Flatt was paid $4.8 million by Brookfield Asset last year, while Connor Teskey, the president and chief of its renewables business, made $7.8 million. Carney was not one of the five named executive officers at Brookfield whose salary and bonus must be revealed to investors.

—With assistance from Laura Dhillon Kane.

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