The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that Ron Bloom has joined Brookfield Asset Management as vice-chairman and managing partner. The Globe's Greg Keenan writes that Mr. Bloom was the mastermind behind the 2006 investment by Brookfield's Tricap Management in Stelco Inc., when that company, which became U.S. Steel Canada Inc., was taking its first tortuous path through the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act. Brookfield is the DIP lender for U.S. Steel Canada in its current jaunt through CCAA protection. His new job, he said in an e-mail, is "focused on helping to invest and manage the $20-billion (U.S.) within [Brookfield's] private equity group." His old job was vice-chairman of U.S. banking at Lazard Freres. "I left only because I wanted to take on a new challenge -- to try my hand on the principal side." Mr. Bloom's journey to Brookfield has been a Forrest Gump-like trip through the restructuring of various troubled pieces of industrial North America. He was a special adviser to United Steelworkers union president Leo Gerard when he knocked on Brookfield's door in 2004 and finally persuaded both the company and reluctant leaders of the union's locals in Canada to do a deal.