Toronto-based investment firm Brookfield Asset Management has finalized a deal to refinance $800 million of Australian-related debt and to combine its European operations, the Canadian Press reports. It has extended the payment of a $1.6 billion loan, which was due next April, by one year.

Under the new agreement, the loan will be reduced to $800 million of which $140 million will be repaid in April 2009 and the remaining a year later. The firm said, “The company intends to permanently finance its Australian real estate operations with asset-specific property mortgages in the future.” It intends to integrate all of its European operations into a single operating company and to refinance it longer-term in the European markets.

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