Asia was the driver of the financial results of Toronto-headquartered Manulife Financial Corporation in the first half of this year, with a 289% jump in net income attributable to shareholders to $424m in the second quarter.
The region showed the biggest growth in net income in 1H2024 even though it ranked second in terms of its contribution to the group’s total net income of around $1bn.
Net income attributed to shareholders in $ m (unless otherwise stated):
|
Business segment
|
2Q2024
|
2Q2023
|
Change
|
1H2024
|
1H2023
|
Change
|
|
Asia
|
424
|
96
|
289%
|
694
|
480
|
41%
|
|
Canada
|
79
|
227
|
(65)%
|
352
|
536
|
(34)%
|
|
US
|
98
|
136
|
(28)%
|
18
|
274
|
(93)%
|
|
Global Wealth & Asset Management
|
350
|
317
|
9%
|
715
|
614
|
16%
|
|
Total
|
1,042
|
1,025
|
(1)%
|
1,908
|
2,431
|
(22)%
|
|
Source: Manulife
|
Mr Roy Gori, Manulife president and CEO, said in a statement, that the group demonstrated continued positive momentum in the second quarter, with core EPS and new business value growth of 9% to $0.91 and 23% to $723m, respectively.
Asia core earnings were up by 40%, benefitting from continued business growth momentum and updates to actuarial methods and assumptions in the second half of 2023.
Asia continued to generate positive momentum and grew APE sales, new business CSM, and NBV by 7%, 10%, and 19%, respectively, reflecting higher sales volumes in Japan and Hong Kong in 2Q2024. The year-over-year improvement of 3.4 percentage points in NBV margin reflected the group’s pricing discipline and changes in the business mix.
The financial results for Asia are summarised as follows:
|
$ m
|
2Q2024
|
2Q2023
|
Change
|
1H2024
|
1H2023
|
Change
|
|
Net income attributed to shareholders
|
424
|
96
|
289%
|
694
|
480
|
41%
|
|
Core earnings
|
472
|
353
|
40%
|
960
|
714
|
40%
|
|
APE sales
|
920
|
879
|
7%
|
1,870
|
1,747
|
10%
|
|
New business CSM
|
349
|
323
|
10%
|
713
|
545
|
34%
|
|
NBV
|
370
|
315
|
19%
|
713
|
590
|
23%
|
|
Source: Manulife
|
Generative AI
Manulife said in its statement, “In Asia, we enhanced agent-customer interactions through the launch of an innovative Generative AI agent sales tool in Singapore that enables our agents to automatically create personalised engagement strategies to offer customers the right solutions at the right time based on their needs, preferences, demographic data, and transaction histories.”