Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: Time to Buy?

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (NYSE: BIP) has been upgraded by RBC Capital Markets to a "buy" probably based on its attractive valuation and projected acquisition of assets, including its acquisition of the remaining outstanding shares of Australia's Prime Infrastructure. Funds from operations (Brookfield's measure of cash flow, before maintenance expenditures), grew 133% on a per-unit basis last quarter.

That upgrade is sure to please Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, but what does that mean for you?

We've enlisted our Motley Fool CAPS to evaluate the performance of RBC Capital Markets and to help you make a call on Brookfield Infrastructure Partners.

Analyst Report Card

On CAPS, we evaluate how Wall Street analyst picks perform relative to the market using publicly available information on their calls. In order for an analyst's buy or sell rating to be accurate, the stock must outperform or underperform the S&P 500, respectively. RBC Capital Markets' picks outperform the market a respectable 53% of the time; the company's performance is in the top 10% of all stock pickers measured by Motley Fool CAPS.

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Report Card

We have consensus!
It looks like Wall Street and Main Street are on the same page: Brookfield Infrastructure Partners is poised to outperform the market. Brookfield Infrastructure is a five-star stock (the highest rating given by our CAPS community), and three Wall Street firms tracked on CAPS rate BIP as likely to outperform. Zero Wall Street firms tracked on CAPS have active underperform calls on the stock.

One of the CAPS members on the bull case, GingersBread, makes the case for BIP:

Brookfield is a well-diversified infrastructure company with smart management and good long-term growth prospects. 30% of their assets are utilities like electricity, pipelines, gas, and water, 30% are transportation infrastructure, 30% are timber fields, and 10% are social infrastructure like hospitals, prisons, and desalination plants. There operations are well-diversified globally, from railroads in Australia to timber fields in Canada, and from ports in Europe to utilities in Chile. The company uses stable cash-generating businesses like urban utilities (literal monopolies) to fuel high-growth operations like airport and railroad construction that service emerging markets.

Now, let's see how the CAPS community believes Brookfield Infrastructure Partners stacks up to other companies in the electric utility and timber industries.

Competitors' Report Card

Make your vote count!
Do you agree Brookfield Infrastructure Partners will outperform the market? Click over to CAPS and let the rest of the community know what you think.

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