MANULIFE FINANCIAL $18.66 - Toronto symbol MFC

MANULIFE FINANCIAL $18.66 (Toronto symbol MFC; Shares outstanding: 1.8 billion; Market cap: $33.7 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 2.8%; www.manulife.ca) sells life and other forms of insurance, as well as mutual funds and investment-management services. It operates globally and has $567 billion of assets under management.

Excluding one-time items, Manulife’s earnings per share rose 3.3% in the three months ended June 30, 2013, to $0.31 from $0.30. That fell short of the consensus estimate of $0.34. Revenue rose slightly, to $6.50 billion from $6.42 billion.

Insurance sales were down 3%, mostly due to lower sales in Asia, where sales were unusually high a year earlier ahead of tax changes. That offset stronger demand for mutual funds and investment products.

Manulife has made substantial progress cutting its U.S. insurance business’s exposure to unpredictable equity markets and interest rates. In addition, the company is steadily increasing its market share in Asia. It now gets about one-third of its insurance premiums from its operations in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines.

The company’s shares have moved up 56% over the past year. They now trade at a high 24.2 times its latest 12 months of earnings. The stock has a current yield of 2.8%.

Manulife is a hold.

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