Topic: Growth Stocks

MANULIFE FINANCIAL $22.18 – Toronto symbol MFC

MANULIFE FINANCIAL $22.18 (Toronto symbol MFC; Shares outstanding: 2.0 billion; Market cap: $43.7 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 2.8%; www.manulife.ca) now gets about a third of its insurance premiums from Asia—but that’s about to rise sharply.

The company has just entered into a 15-year “bancassurance” partnership with Singapore-based banker DBS Group Holdings. The deal will let Manulife sell life and health insurance through DBS’s Asian branch network.

Manulife won the deal over a group of companies that included Aviva plc, Prudential and AIA Group. It will pay DBS $1.2 billion to replace Aviva in its branches.

The agreement takes effect on January 1, 2016, and covers 200 of DBS’s branches with over six million customers in Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Indonesia. DBS has a sales force of over 2,000 professionals, as well as a strong Internet and mobile-banking presence.

Two of DBS’s strongest markets, Singapore and Hong Kong, are underserved by insurers. They also have large and growing middle classes looking to life and health insurance to make up for a lack of social programs.

Many insurance products are still sold door-to-door in Asia, but banks are becoming a key sales channel. That’s partly because bank branches target a much wealthier clientele.

Manulife is still a buy.

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