Manulife Financial Corp. is hosting its annual Institutional Investor Day in Toronto today, where Manulife senior management will present Manulife’s strategic direction and objectives to increase net income to $4 billion in 2015 and improve return on common shareholders’ equity (ROE) to 13% by 2015.
Over the past several quarters Manulife has been repositioning its business to reduce capital market risk, increase future earnings growth and improve ROE.
CEO Donald Guloien will open the day with a presentation on the specific objectives driving this repositioning and will review the global and divisional strategies being implemented to meet the company’s objectives.
For the Canadian Division, the estimated ROE for the latest four quarters ending September 30, 2010 was 13%. Management has set a 2015 objective for the Canadian division to achieve net income of $1.5 billion and ROE based on net income of 14%.
This growth is expected to be driven in part by the high return wealth management businesses, specifically Mutual funds, Manulife bank and group retirement solutions. Additional expected is growth in the following sectors: individual life, group benefits, affinity and variable annuity. Canadian Division’s 2011 new business plan contemplates a new business IRR in excess of 14 % in aggregate.