Timely buy for Manulife

Article Excerpt

MANULIFE FINANCIAL $21.20 (Toronto symbol MFC; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $40.0 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 2.9%; www.manulife.ca) has agreed to buy the Canadian insurance operations of U.K.-based Standard Life plc for $4 billion. In all, Standard Life has about 2,000 employees across Canada, along with 1.4 million clients and $52.0 billion of assets under management. To put that in perspective, Manulife has $637 billion of assets under management. Standard Life has a strong presence in Quebec, mainly in Montreal and Quebec City. Manulife has long felt it was underrepresented in the province, where it operates under the Manuvie brand. The deal also adds to Manulife’s high-profitmargin wealth management business and to its leading position in group pensions in Canada. Manulife Financial is a buy. buy…