Manulife, Sun Life Profits Beat Estimates on Asia Gains

(Bloomberg) -- Canadian insurers Manulife Financial Corp. and Sun Life Financial Inc. posted third-quarter profits that topped analysts’ expectations, as gains in Asia fueled earnings growth.

Sun Life saw underlying profit in Asia surge 25% to C$138 million ($105 million), boosted by higher sales in insurance and wealth, while Manulife’s record C$520 million of core earnings for the region was up 13% from a year earlier.

“The rebound in Asia was stronger than expected” for Sun Life, Sumit Malhotra, an analyst at Bank of Nova Scotia, said in a note to clients. For Manulife “Asia once again carried the freight for earnings power,” Malhotra said.

Shares of Manulife, Canada’s largest life insurer, rose 2.6% to C$26.12 at 9:47 a.m. in Toronto, its biggest intraday increase since Oct. 11. Sun Life advanced 1.5% to C$61.55.

Sun Life’s underlying net income rose 11% to C$809 million in the quarter, with per-share earnings of C$1.37 topping the C$1.27-a-share average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The Toronto-based insurer reported C$78 million of tax-related benefits in the quarter, which contributed to the beat. Sun Life raised its dividend by 5% to 55 cents a share.

Among Sun Life’s other key divisions, underlying earnings in Canada rose 6.8% to C$268 million while the U.S. division saw profit slide 2.9%. Its asset management division saw little change from a year earlier, at C$251 million.

Manulife’s core earnings fell 0.8% to C$1.53 billion, or 76 cents a share, beating the 73-cent average estimate of 13 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Earnings in the U.S. rose 0.9% to C$471 million while the Canadian division had a 7.6% drop in profit to C$318 million, with reduced earnings partly due to sales of portfolios to reinsurers. Wealth and asset management earnings fell 2.4% to C$281 million.

While Asia earnings were at a record, the pace of growth showed signs of slowing from the first half and last year. The company has seen a contraction in Japan, though that’s being offset by growth in Hong Kong, China and Vietnam, according to Chief Financial Officer Phil Witherington.

“We remain very optimistic about Asia,” Witherington said in a phone interview. “The fact that the mix is shifting away from Japan into other markets actually reinforces the strategy that we have in Asia, which is positioning ourselves for sustainable double-digit growth.“

(Updates with shares in fourth paragraph.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Doug Alexander in Toronto at dalexander3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Scanlan at dscanlan@bloomberg.net, ;Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Jacqueline Thorpe, Steve Dickson

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