Manulife Asset Management Concludes Another Successful Year

TORONTO and BOSTON, Dec. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Manulife Asset Management, the investment management arm of Manulife, is concluding another strong year, with growth in both sales and assets under management. It also continues to invest in the firm's leadership, multi-asset solutions and thought leadership capabilities.

Total global assets managed by the firm were $450 billion¹ as of September 30, 2016*, up 10 per cent from September 30 last year. The firm's long-term investment performance continues to be strong, with the majority of public asset classes outperforming their benchmarks on a 3- and 5-year basis². As at September 30, 2016, Manulife Asset Management advised or sub-advised funds that had a total of 110 Four- and Five-Star Morningstar ratings, an increase of 12 funds since June 30, 2016. Our total institutional gross sales through September 30, 2016, were $7.6 billion, and total net sales were $1.5 billion.

"We're very pleased that Manulife Asset Management continues to grow, and we are committed to investing in our people, leveraging our global capabilities and developing new solutions for our clients," said Warren A. Thomson, Chairman of Manulife Asset Management.

Our outlook remains positive given a robust sales pipeline, bolstered by many wins in our flagship strategies that provide numerous prospects for continued growth. Our institutional assets under management were $74 billion as at September. 30, 2016, a 13% increase from the prior year, and more than double what we managed in 2013. In its 2015 ranking of global asset managers, Pension and Investments ranked Manulife 28^th, up four spots from the previous year, and a strong jump from ten years earlier, when we ranked 62^nd.³

"In 2016, we continued to build our franchise and developed deeper relationships with our clients in retail and, notably, our institutional business. In the solutions space, our cumulative assets are now about $134 billion as of October 31," said Kai R. Sotorp, President and CEO. "We're focusing our efforts going forward on enhancing our capabilities around multi-asset solutions so that we can help all our clients realize their goals."

In Asia, Manulife Asset Management continued to innovate, launching the first US Real Estate Investment Trust in Singapore, and bringing our expertise, developed through more than 70 years of real estate management, to the market.⁴

Milestones and Capabilities

Manulife Asset Management continued to expand its presence in Europe, moving into a new London headquarters and adding key distribution leads for the U.K. and Ireland, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, and expanded our capabilities in multi-asset solutions and liquid alternatives with some key new hires.

In addition, our Chief Economist, Megan Greene, was named one of the 100 most influential economists on Twitter by news blog and digital newspaper Richtopia.

Senior Appointments

In the second half of 2016, we made the following key appointments:

• Emily Chew was named Global Head of Environmental, Social and Governance Research, based in our Hong Kong office, to help further our practices with regards to responsible investing, in line with our recent signing of the United Nations' Principles for Responsible Investing.
• Neil Summers was named Head of Client Service and Sales Support, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), operating out of our European headquarters in London.
• Jamie Robertson was named a senior portfolio manager in the Portfolio Solutions Group, and will be responsible for overseeing Manulife Asset Management's Canadian asset allocation franchise.
• Oran Walsh was named Managing Director, Institutional Sales in the U.S., focusing on sub-advisory and financial institutions, adding to our established distribution team in Boston.

Global Thought Leadership

Manulife Asset Management's thought leadership program continues to provide our clients with insights to help make sense of an increasingly complex and sometimes unpredictable investing environment.

• "US Presidential Election: How It Could Affect US High Yield & Canadian Fixed Income", published a week before Election Day, examined how credit markets might respond to the results.
• "U.S. Presidential Election: Snap Reaction", published early the morning after Donald Trump's upset win in the U.S. election, sought to explain how the result would impact financial markets and the economic outlook.
• "Trump Presidency: Uncertainty Abounds", published a week later, was a deeper dive by Chief Economist Megan Greene to explore how even with financial markets stabilizing she expects uncertainty to continue for several months at least.
• "The Salient Seven – Seven Key Economic Themes for the Months Ahead & Beyond" looked at seven key drivers of economic outlook: Over-indebtedness, Ample Liquidity, Beggar Thy Neighbor currency actions, Low government bond yields, a glut of regulation, demographics, and lowflation.
• "Understanding Brexit & Its Impact: What to Monitor in the Days and Months Ahead" examined how the U.K.'s surprise vote to give up its EU membership introduced significant uncertainty to the global markets.
• "Brexit: Looking Beyond the Immediate Market Reaction" took a sector-by-sector approach to how our investment professionals thought Brexit might influence market performance in the months and years ahead.
• "Canada Playbook 2016" featured Senior Economist Frances Donald examined how Canada's economy was adjusting to the recent collapse in energy prices.

* All figures Canadian dollars, as of September 30, 2016, unless otherwise noted.

1 - Information shown represents advised and sub-advised, public and private assets as of September 30, 2016 managed by Manulife Asset Management (Manulife AM) and certain of its affiliates on behalf of Manulife AM, its clients, and the general accounts of the insurance company affiliates of Manulife AM. Manulife AM assets under management include assets of Manulife TEDA Fund Management Company Ltd.'s 49% joint venture ownership structure. The methodologies used to compile the total assets under management are subject to change.

2 – Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

3 - Pensions & Investments, May 30, 2016 (ranking based on assets under management, as of December 31, 2015). Manulife Asset Management's (Manulife AM) ranking in 2015 was among 604 global asset management firms; 2014s ranking was among 656 global asset management firms. Qualifying firm AUM must include assets for U.S. tax-exempt institutions.

4 - Not available to U.S. investors.

About Manulife Asset Management

Manulife Asset Management is the global asset management arm of Manulife, providing comprehensive asset management solutions for investors. This investment expertise extends across a broad range of public and private asset classes, as well as asset allocation solutions. As at September 30, 2016, assets under management for Manulife Asset Management were approximately C$450 billion (US$343 billion, GBP£263 billion, EUR€305 billion).

Manulife Asset Management's public markets units have investment expertise across a broad range of asset classes including public equity and fixed income, and asset allocation strategies.  Offices with full investment capabilities are located in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. In addition, Manulife Asset Management has a joint venture asset management business in China, Manulife TEDA. The public markets units of Manulife Asset Management also provide investment management services to affiliates' retail clients through product offerings of Manulife and John Hancock. John Hancock Asset Management is a division of Manulife Asset Management.

Additional information about Manulife Asset Management may be found at ManulifeAM.com.

About Manulife

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services group providing forward-thinking solutions to help people with their big financial decisions. We operate as John Hancock in the United States, and Manulife elsewhere. We provide financial advice, insurance and wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups and institutions. At the end of 2015, we had approximately 34,000 employees, 63,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving 20 million customers. At the end of September 2016, we had $966 billion (US$736 billion) in assets under management and administration, and in the previous 12 months we made more than $24.4 billion in benefits, interest and other payments to our customers. Our principal operations are in Asia, Canada and the United States where we have served customers for more than 100 years. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges and under '945' in Hong Kong. Follow Manulife on Twitter @ManulifeNews or visit manulife.com or johnhancock.com.

SOURCE Manulife Asset Management

Related Links

http://www.manulifeam.com