Shares of Manulife Financial Corp. made their largest intraday gain in a year after the company beat expectations in the fourth quarter, capping off a year of strong growth.
The Toronto-based insurance firm reported core earnings of $1.03 per share in the fourth quarter, higher than the 94 Canadian cents predicted by analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Manulife also announced it would repurchase about 52 million shares, or 3% of shares outstanding, and raised the quarterly dividend by 10% to 44 Canadian cents per share.
The shares gained as much as 8.5% to $45.93 in morning trading in Toronto.
Growth was driven by the Asia and global wealth asset management segments, which each delivered double-digit gains from a year ago. That performance “blew past our expectations, and help build our confidence that Manulife can meet its new medium-term objectives,” Meny Grauman, analyst with Bank of Nova Scotia, wrote in a client note.
Overall, the firm reported $7.2 billion (US$5.1 billion) in core earnings for the year, up 8% from 2023.
Manulife closed three reinsurance deals in 2024, the latest being an agreement with Reinsurance Group of America covering $5.4 billion of reserves. Chief Financial Officer Colin Simpson said the transactions were a way to validate Manulife’s reserves to investors.
“We felt like long-term care acts as an overhang on our investor story,” Simpson said in an interview Wednesday evening. “And so we felt investors didn’t have the visibility that we did on our reserve.”
US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on imports from Canada are unlikely to derail Manulife’s growth, Simpson said, given that the company doesn’t have much cross-border business exposure.
Chief Executive Officer Roy Gori, 56, will retire from Manulife in May and be succeeded by Phil Witherington, who heads the Asia division. Gori has led the company since October 2017.
Stephanie Hughes, Bloomberg News
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