Brookfield Asset Management to spin off and list unit

(Reuters) - Canada's Brookfield Asset Management Inc said it would spin off 35 percent of Brookfield Business Partners LP , which will own almost all of the asset manager's business services and industrial operations assets. Brookfield Asset Management said it would spin off the business by distributing a special dividend of about $500 million, or 50 cents per share, to its shareholders in the form of units of Brookfield Business Partners (BBP). Business services and industrial operations units generated about $200 million funds from operations for Brookfield Asset Management last year. The asset manager plans to apply for listing of Bermuda-based limited partnership BBP in Canada and the United States. The spin-off is expected to close in the first quarter of 2016. Brookfield Asset Management plans to hold a general partner interest in the partnership along with equity interest of about 65 percent. In 2012, Brookfield Asset Management spun off its commercial real estate holdings into Brookfield Property Partners LP. (http://reut.rs/1VDkEFp) Up to Tuesday's close of C$42.22, Brookfield Asset Management's stock had risen nearly 9 percent on the Toronto Stock Exchange this year. (Reporting by Anet Josline Pinto in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Shounak Dasgupta)