{"id":462752,"date":"2010-03-23T07:43:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-23T11:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"e2249889-c78b-43e3-9643-b1d7d4aa587b:411491"},"modified":"2010-03-23T07:43:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-23T11:43:00","slug":"manulife-adjustment-embarrassing-but-not-meaningful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/462752","title":{"rendered":"Manulife adjustment embarrassing but not meaningful"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalpost.com\/story.html?id=2704635\" >The revisions<\/a> to Manulife Financial Corp.\u2019s previous adjusted earnings and its expectations for future results as a result of how it values its Japanese variable annuity business may be embarrassing, but they are not a sign of any fundamental weakness in the business. There have not been any errors in the reporting of total GAAP earnings and management\u2019s explanation provides comfort that no fundamental problems with this business were revealed by this re-evaluation, according to Desjardins Securities analyst Michael Goldberg. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhether or not there is a direct link, Manulife had replaced its CFO in Japan and subsequently discovered the analytical error,\u201d he told clients.<\/p>\n<p>The analyst said the $50-million reduction in expected quarterly adjusted earnings through 2010 can and should be offset by a corresponding increase in experience gains. As a result, Mr. Goldberg reversed part of his 2010 and 2011 earnings per share forecast reductions. \u201cThere is zero change in total earnings, just in the sources of those earnings.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>In its Management Discussion and Analysis, Manulife also noted that it added $2.5-billion to its additional margin on segregated funds during 2009.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis increases its cushion of profitability and should mean higher earnings emerging from seg funds in the future,\u201d Mr. Goldberg said. <\/p>\n<p>So while the initial reaction to Manulife\u2019s revisions is expected to be negative, he said its fundamentals are unchanged, maintaining a Top Pick rating and $25 price target.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:jratner@nationalpost.com\">Jonathan Ratner<\/a> <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/network.nationalpost.com\/NP\/aggbug.aspx?PostID=411491\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The revisions to Manulife Financial Corp.\u2019s previous adjusted earnings and its expectations for future results as a result of how it values its Japanese variable annuity business may be embarrassing, but they are not a sign of any fundamental weakness in the business. There have not been any errors in the reporting of total GAAP [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4059,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4059"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}