The global financial crisis of 2007 – 2008 is an excellent example of that. While the crisis may have started in the US because of irresponsible lending in the years running up to the real estate collapse, the contagion quickly spread around the world as it became clear that American banks weren’t the only ones buying toxic mortgage bonds. And that revealed fault lines in financial institutions around the world, creating a global liquidity crunch that ultimately helped spark the European sovereign debt crisis.

While the crisis itself looked random, the global response was highly coordinated with central banks around the world timing their responses to achieve maximum impact. For instance, in 2011, the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Swiss National Bank joined forces to provide cheap, emergency US dollar loans to banks around the world to blunt the impact of the debt crisis. More orchestrated responses do make sense given the global nature of crises today.

When the next inflationary bubble blows up it is much more likely to impact multiple regions rather than a single country. That’s especially true with almost every central bank in the world implementing policies to actively encourage a surge in inflation. The ECB has slashed its interest rates and begun targeted lending programs. As discussed in this issue’s Inflation Watch, our own Fed is now hinting that interest rates will likely remain at current levels beyond next year and the Bank of Japan is still actively stimulating that nation’s economy.

Just as central banks are thinking beyond their own borders, so must investors concerned about hedging themselves against inflation. While the usual hedges still apply, whether that is hard assets such as mines and infrastructure projects, real estate, metals or inflation-protected bonds, they must have a more global character to be effective.

Here’s a company that has hard asset exposure with global diversification that is such a hedge:

Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM) bills itself as a global alternative asset manager, with more than $190 billion of assets spread across 20 countries. That includes $109 billion of property investments that encompass more than 330 million square feet of office, retail, industrial and multifamily properties spanning North America, Europe, Australia, China and Brazil. It also manages more than 200 hydroelectric plants in the US, Canada and Brazil and 11 wind farms here in the US, producing more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity and valued at more than $19 billion. It as another $29 billion invested in ports, toll roads, railways, pipelines and farm and timberland on five continents, with another $29 billion in assets under management in private equity investments.

Brookfield is an interesting company in that it is run almost like a private equity firm, investing its own money as well as that of its shareholders and clients into its projects. Those clients include public and private pensions, sovereign wealth funds and financial companies such as insurers. As a result, it generates income by owning and operating assets under contracts that include inflation adjustments, and by managing client investments.

Brookfield currently has more than $6 billion in core liquidity, with access to another $8 billion of capital from institutional investment partners. It also has easy access to global capital markets, allowing it to take advantage of today’s extremely favorable rates to finance new acquisitions and development.

In the first quarter it reported that funds from operations grew by 6 percent year-over-year to $492 million, largely thanks to solid price gains in its renewable energy and increased asset management fees. $387 million of that total was generated on an operational basis, while $105 million was tied to dispositions. Consolidated net income in the period was also up 57 percent, reaching 80 cents per share as compared to 51 cents in the year-ago period.

Brookfield made nine acquisitions over the course of the quarter, totaling about $400 million in North America, Europe and China, including a hydroelectric facility in British Columbia and a port in Los Angeles. It also struck an agreement to acquire a port in New York/New Jersey as well as electricity transmission systems in three major American cities.

Other the past three years, the company has generated average revenue growth of 17.5 percent with net income growth of 13.4 percent over the same period. Through savvy acquisitions it has also grown its book value per share from $5.63 a decade ago to $28.89 today while keeping its debt-to-equity ratio at around 2.5 times. Both its returns on assets and equity are also well ahead of similar firms at 1.9 percent and 12.3 percent over the trailing year.

The company should continue to enjoy strong organic growth in income from its fee-generating assets thanks to both rising inflation and increased use.

The greatest risk to the company now would be another significant downturn in the global economy, but that seems like an extremely unlikely scenario with all of the world’s central banks in a highly accommodative mood.