SUN LIFE FINANCIAL $41.71

SUN LIFE FINANCIAL $41.71 (Toronto symbol SLF; Shares outstanding: 612.3 million; Market cap: $25.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.7%; www.sunlife.ca) sells life insurance, savings, retirement and pension products to individuals and corporations. The company has $891.3 billion of assets under management and mainly operates in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. It’s also expanding in Asia. In the three months ended December 31, 2015, Sun Life’s earnings per share rose 7.4%, to $0.87 from $0.81. The company continues to diversify in the U.S. At the same time, it’s focusing on highly profitable niche markets with low capital requirements. Its latest purchase was the U.S. employee benefits unit of Assurant Inc. for $975 million U.S. This deal closed on March 1, 2016. It nearly doubles the size of Sun Life’s U.S. benefit business, to $4.0 billion worth of policies for over 64,000 employees of small, medium and large businesses. The company is now the sixth-largest U.S. benefits provider by revenue, up from ninth. The acquisition also adds leading dental and vision insurance products to Sun Life’s lineup, letting it cross-sell them to its existing clients. As well, Assurant has invested heavily in an advanced online enrolment and customer-service system. Sun Life can extend this system to its entire benefits business. The stock trades at just 11.0 times Sun Life’s forecast 2016 earnings of $3.79 a share. The shares yield a high 3.7%. Sun Life is a buy.

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