An Infrastructure Play to Help Diversify

The payout may stray from 60-70% as new acquisitions are made and digested, to which I would add, it makes sense to expect the occasional writedown, depreciation or other form of impairment as well.

The reason to mention this is that these sorts of investment products are often complex businesses that do a lot of transactions that can make analyzing them a little more difficult than regular stocks. Similar products are quite active in this regard, and the Brookfield Web site tells prospective investors this will be the case with BIP.

This does not make BIP a poor investment, but it does underscore that BIP might require a little more work to follow it.

There's also a leap of faith that not only can management successfully run the current operation, but that they will buy "the right" assets in the future and be able to successfully run those new assets as well.

One other possible factor contributing to the volatility may have been the issue with brownouts in Chile due to a lack of hydroelectric generation, and a few other factors that could lead to more serious problems. This is an ongoing issue, and while President Bachelet is working diligently to avert a crisis, anyone buying BIP needs to follow this issue.

One possible catalyst for price appreciation over the next couple of years could be the timberland. In the most recent quarterly report, the company reported that the electricity generation was profitable but that the timber asset results were weak and generated a loss. This has not been the best of times for most timber companies, but that market will turn. Assuming BIP still owns timberland when it does turn, it could pick up a nice tailwind.