UPDATE 1-Manulife eyes insurance, asset management deals in Asia

(Adds share closing price; changes headline; adds picture)
By John Tilak
TORONTO, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Manulife Financial Corp
MFC.TO , Canada's biggest insurer, is interested in a range of
insurance and asset management acquisition opportunities across
several markets in Asia, a top executive said on Thursday.
The company is looking to strengthen its position in Japan
and Hong Kong, its two biggest markets in Asia, as well as add
capabilities at fast-growing segments such as China, Philippines
and Vietnam.
Toronto-based Manulife, whose rivals in Canada include Sun
Life Financial Inc SLF.TO and Great-West Lifeco Inc GWO.TO ,
has made a slew of acquisitions in recent months. Any deal in
Asia would accelerate its growth plans in the region, which has
been a big driver for the broader company.
Manulife is looking to take advantage of its own capital
position and favorable demographic trends in the region, said
Roy Gori, chief executive of Manulife Asia.
"You've got a middle class that's growing very rapidly,
you've got an aging population," he said in an interview with
Reuters. "And wealth will more than double in the next 10
years."
The company has about 10,000 employees in Asia and operates
in 12 markets. The region accounts for about a third of
Manulife's earnings and about half of its insurance sales.
"An important part of our strategy is to diversify our
business and to have some far smaller businesses gain greater
scale," he said, adding that such moves would help improve
margins and better deal with market volatility.
Choppiness in the price of oil took a toll on the company's
profits in the third quarter, causing them to miss market
expectations. The stock closed down 3.7 percent on Thursday.

In April, Manulife signed a $1.2 billion deal with
Singapore's DBS Group Holdings Ltd DBSM.SI for a 15-year
partnership that will allow the insurer to sell products through
the lender's Asian branch network.
The company would be interested in more such 'bancassurance'
deals, in which insurers pay to access lenders' branch networks,
Gori said.
"Bancassurance is a key aspect of growth and opportunity for
us. So we'll continue to pursue that," he said.
In another deal, Manulife agreed to buy Standard Chartered (L:STAN)'s
Hong Kong pension business and entered into a partnership to
provide pension services through the mandatory provident fund
platform to the bank's customers in Hong Kong.
Gori, who joined Manulife from Citigroup (N:C) to head the Asian
unit earlier in 2015, declined to say how much the company would
spend on acquisitions.
Manulife had cash and short-term securities of C$18.3
billion at the end of the third quarter.