Manulife Asset Management Further Strengthens Global Asset Allocation Team

BOSTON, Nov. 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its commitment to continually strengthening its solutions business, Manulife Asset Management, the investment management arm of Manulife, has bolstered its Global Asset Allocation team.

Nathan Thooft, head of global asset allocation, said today that the team has added three new members, promoted two existing team members to portfolio managers, named a head of Macroeconomic Strategy, and a head of asset allocation in Canada.

"One of our key priorities moving forward is continuing to strengthen the solutions we offer clients in Asia, Canada, Europe and US through multi-asset strategies, leveraging both proprietary and non-proprietary alpha streams," said Chris Conkey, President and CEO of Manulife Asset Management. "Multi-asset solutions are a growth area for our company and the industry as a whole. We are one of the pioneers in this space and we look forward to continuing to be one of its leaders."

"For more than 20 years, we have successfully managed multi-asset, multi-style, multi- manager portfolios with a consistent, proven investment process," Mr. Thooft said. "We will continue to leverage this approach as the asset allocation space evolves and grows."

While much of the company's solutions success has been in the retail, advisor-sold market, opportunities are growing rapidly in the institutional, custom, and model delivery offerings. "Focus areas for growth include target date and other retirement solutions, model delivery and advisory solutions, and outcome oriented and multi-asset income solutions across the risk spectrum," Mr. Thooft said.

The Asset Allocation team of more than 40 people globally has approximately $110 billion in assets under management.

"These new hires and promotions afford us the opportunity to take advantage of these growth opportunities and further position ourselves as leaders in the multi-asset space," Mr. Thooft said. "We're adding highly talented and experienced investment professionals to continually better serve a growing range of clients."

• Bruce Picard, Model Portfolio Lead, is responsible for leading investment efforts to expand model delivery and custom solution capabilities. Mr. Picard has more than 25 years of investment experience most recently building and leading multi asset efforts at Mass Mutual, including overseeing a multi-manager platform and asset allocation strategies.
• Geoffrey Kelley, Portfolio Manager, joins from State Street Global Advisors and will contribute to the research and investment decision-making process across a wide variety of global, multi-asset strategies, including target-risk, target-date, and other outcome-oriented portfolios. He has nearly 25 years of investment experience, including direct equity and fixed income portfolio management, a strong institutional target date background, a tenured research focus on retirement solutions, and deep knowledge in strategic and dynamic asset allocation.
• David Kobuszewski, Senior Investment Analyst, who also joins from State Street, has more than 15 years of investment experience in multi-asset and fixed income investing. He has a strong background in strategic and tactical asset class forecasting approaches and factor-based and risk premia research, which will further bolster the team's efforts in these areas.
• Jamie Robertson has been named head of asset allocation in Canada. Mr. Robertson is responsible for overseeing the Canadian asset allocation franchise, including portfolio management, research and development, and supporting product development and business development.
• Frances Donald, who joined the team as a senior economist in 2016, has been promoted to Head of Macroeconomic Strategy. She and her staff provide global macroeconomic investment analysis to further enhance the team's investment process. They also support the organization's other investment teams globally.
• Rob Sykes and Chris Walsh have been promoted to portfolio manager. Mr. Sykes and Mr. Walsh handle portfolio management of multi-asset portfolios and conduct fundamental research across various asset classes and investment strategies. Mr. Sykes, who joined the company in 2008, previously was at FactSet Research Systems and at Fidelity Investments. Mr. Walsh, who joined the company in 2009, previously was at Putnam Investments.

About Manulife Asset Management
Manulife Asset Management is the global asset management arm of Manulife Financial Corporation ("Manulife"). We provide comprehensive asset management solutions for investors across a broad range of public and private asset classes, as well as asset allocation solutions. We also provide portfolio management for affiliated retail Manulife and John Hancock product offerings.

Our investment expertise includes public and private equity and fixed income, real estate and infrastructure equity and debt, timberland and farmland, oil and gas, and mezzanine debt. We operate in the United States, Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, as well as through a China joint venture, Manulife TEDA. We also serve investors in select European, Middle Eastern, and Latin American markets.

As at June 30, 2018, assets under management for Manulife Asset Management were approximately C$516 billion (US$392 billion, GBP£297 billion, EUR€336 billion). Additional information may be found at ManulifeAM.com.

About Manulife
Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services group that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. We operate primarily as John Hancock in the United States and Manulife elsewhere. We provide financial advice, insurance, as well as wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups and institutions. At the end of 2017, we had about 35,000 employees, 73,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving more than 26 million customers. As of September 30, 2018, we had over $1.1 trillion (US$863 billion) in assets under management and administration, and in the previous 12 months we made $27.6 billion in payments to our customers. Our principal operations are in Asia, Canada and the United States where we have served customers for more than 100 years. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges and under '945' in Hong Kong.

SOURCE Manulife Asset Management

Related Links

http://ManulifeAM.com