Oaktree Capital Management

Founded in Los Angeles in 1995 by Howard Marks, Bruce Karsh and other former TCW professionals, Oaktree began with strategies including high-yield bonds, convertibles and distressed debt. Brookfield became its majority owner in 2019 and completed the acquisition of Oaktree’s remaining interest in 2026.

Oaktree manages investments across credit, equity and real estate, with credit at the center of the platform. Its strategies cover opportunistic and private credit, structured credit, real estate debt, emerging-markets debt, high-yield bonds and other liquid-credit markets.

The firm is especially associated with bottom-up, value-oriented investing and rigorous risk control. That approach is designed for markets where complexity, distress or forced selling can create mispriced securities, rather than for predicting macroeconomic turning points.