The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition after entering Brazil 116 years ago, Brookfield Asset Management is still adding to its holdings in the South American country. The Globe's John Daly infrastructure also fits in with two of Brookfield's fundamental investing principles -- take the long-term view, and be contrarian. Brookfield's Ben Vaughan says foreign and domestic investors often get overly excited or pessimistic about Brazil, where Brookfield can trace its lineage, via the Brascan and Edper conglomerates, back to the founding of Sao Paulo Tramway, Light and Power by Canadian investors in 1899. "The realities on the ground are often different than the sentiment," said Mr. Vaughan, who lived in Brazil from 2012 to 2014. Looking at the past 20 years, he says there has been "a steady progression forward and the development of a middle class." On the other hand, pessimism can help create investing bargains. Brookfield's stable of more than 250 office properties around the world wins a lot of publicity, but the company has also more than doubled its holdings in South America over the past seven years. It now owns and operates $20-billion worth of assets in Brazil, Chile and Colombia.