2010 News Releases

TORONTO – Manulife Mutual Funds, now a division of the renamed Manulife Asset Management Limited, announced today the addition of six new funds to its growing family of mutual funds.

“Income and yield continue to have prominent focus in investors’ portfolios,” said Jeff Ray, Assistant Vice President, Mutual Fund Products. “With these new funds, Manulife continues to demonstrate leadership and our expertise in fixed income investing by increasing the choices advisors have when building their clients’ income portfolios. These new funds significantly expand our spectrum of fixed income funds and provide advisors and investors with a range of investment options to meet their income and yield requirements.”

New Manulife funds

These new funds are now available for sale in Canada. 

- Manulife Strategic Income Class – this corporate class version of the 2010 Lipper Award-winning trust fund will also be managed by Dan Janis. The Fund will strive to generate a return similar to that of a diversified portfolio primarily consisting of government and corporate debt securities from developed and emerging markets, and also U.S. government and agency securities and high yield bonds. This return may be generated primarily by entering into forward contracts.

- Manulife Floating Rate Income Fund – this Fund will appeal to fixed income investors who are concerned with rising interest rates. The Fund invests in securities that pay variable, or floating, rates of interest. It can potentially have a unique role in income portfolios by diversifying interest rate sensitive investments and helping investors to diversify their fixed income portfolios.

- Manulife Short Term Bond Fund – the role of this Fund in a portfolio will be to reduce volatility or shorten duration. The Fund is managed using an active, value-oriented investment style that is based on fundamental research. The portfolio advisor employs top-down economic research and bottom-up credit analysis that seeks to identify “pockets of value” and minimize downside risk. Terry Carr, who also co-manages the recently launched Manulife Yield Opportunities Fund, is the fund manager.

In addition to the new income funds, the firm also introduced two new Canadian equity funds and one new Canadian balanced fund. “The portfolio management strength on these funds really stands out,” said Mr. Ray. “They’ll be managed by experienced managers who currently oversee other top performing and award-winning funds in the Manulife Mutual Fund family.”

- Manulife Canadian Opportunities Fund and Manulife Canadian Opportunities Class – to generate investment returns, these funds will focus on Canada but also employ “go anywhere” mandates.   The fund managers can search both in Canada and globally, as well as by market capitalization and sector, for the best investment ideas and securities that are believed to be attractively priced with growth potential. Ted Whitehead, who is also lead manager of the 5-star rated Manulife Growth Opportunities Fund, will manage these new funds.

- Manulife Canadian Balanced Fund – strong management experience headlines this new fund with award-winning Mawer Investment Management Ltd. as sub-advisor and Craig Senyk as fund manager. Mr. Senyk also manages the Mawer Canadian Diversified Investment Fund, winner of the 2010 Lipper Award in the Global Balanced Equity category (3 and 10 years).

Manulife also announced today three additional organizational changes. To add clarity to its mutual fund lineup, the company renamed a number of existing funds by removing AIC and Mawer names from the applicable fund names, changed portfolio management responsibilities for two funds and sub-advisor responsibilities for one fund, and also renamed the legal entity which operates Manulife Mutual Funds.

Name changes to existing funds

The following AIC funds were renamed. There were no changes to the sub-advisors on these funds.

The following funds sub-advised by Mawer Investment Management Limited were renamed. The firm will continue as the sub-advisor for these funds. 
 

The following other funds were renamed:

Portfolio management change

On or about September 1, 2010, the portfolio management for the Manulife Canadian Core Fund and Manulife Canadian Core Class will change to Ted Whitehead from Pat McHugh.

Portfolio Sub-advisor Change

On or about December 1, 2010, the portfolio sub-advisor of Manulife Japan Class will change from Manulife Asset Management (Hong Kong) Limited in Hong Kong, China to MFC Global Investment Management (Japan) Limited in Tokyo, Japan. The portfolio manager of the fund will change at the same time to Hidehiro Tomioka from Linda Csellak.

Legal entity name change

Effective on this date the name of the legal entity Elliott & Page Limited was changed to Manulife Asset Management Limited.

About Manulife Investments
Manulife Investments is the brand name describing certain Canadian subsidiaries and operating divisions of Manulife Financial Corporation that offer personal wealth management products and services in Canada. As one of Canada's leading integrated financial services providers, Manulife Investments offers a variety of products and services including segregated funds, mutual funds, annuities and guaranteed interest contracts. 

About Manulife Financial

Manulife Financial is a leading Canadian-based financial services group operating in 22 countries and territories worldwide. For more than 120 years, clients worldwide have looked to Manulife for strong, reliable, trustworthy and forward-thinking solutions for their most significant financial decisions. Our international network of employees, agents and distribution partners offers financial protection and wealth management products and services to millions of clients around the world. We provide asset management services to institutional customers worldwide as well as reinsurance solutions, specializing in life and property and casualty retrocession. Funds under management by Manulife Financial and its subsidiaries were Cdn$454 billion (US$428 billion) as at June 30, 2010.

The Company operates as Manulife Financial in Canada and Asia and primarily as John Hancock in the United States. Manulife Financial Corporation trades as ‘MFC’ on the TSX, NYSE and PSE, and under ‘945’ on the SEHK. Manulife Financial can be found on the Internet at www.manulife.com.

Media contact:
Tom Nunn
Manulife Financial
1-877-782-2363
tom_nunn@manulife.com