Manulife Financial President and CEO Donald Guloien speaks during their Annual General Meeting at their head office in Toronto on Thursday May 03, 2012.Aaron Vincent Elkaim/The Canadian Press
Manulife Financial Corp. is aggressively pursuing wealth management around the world, and on Tuesday it added a new broker-dealer and investment adviser network to its U.S. business, John Hancock.
The move to expand south of the border comes as the John Hancock business has been making strong gains. Not only were sales of new life insurance products up in the first quarter of 2013, it posted $7-billion in wealth sales for the quarter – an increase of 45 per cent from the first quarter of 2012 – with record mutual fund sales helping it reach these highs.
Manulife's chief executive Donald Guloien described the mutual fund momentum around the world in the company's most recent earnings call: "My friend [Manulife's chief financial officer] Steve Roder describes it as a conveyor belt of sales across wealth and asset management," he said. "It is also institutional and retail."
That's why the purchase of Bellevue, Wash.-based Symetra Investment Services (SIS) makes sense, even if it's a small deal. The firm is about 280 employees strong, and these representatives should easily tack onto the existing retail distribution system called John Hancock Financial Network, as well as its broker dealer partner.
John Hancock is buying the unit for an undisclosed amount from from a large U.S. life insurer Symetra Financial Corp., and the deal is expected to close later this year. The Symetra stock is up 15 per cent this year, reaching its highest point ever this week.
(Jacqueline Nelson is a Globe and Mail Financial Services Reporter.)
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