Universal Life Insurance - Business Partnership Launched between
Manulife Financial, Its Japan Affiliate Manulife Life
Insurance, and Bank Of Tokyo-Mitsubishi
Manulife Financial Corporation
(Headquarters: Toronto, Ontario, Canada,President & CEO:
Dominic D'Alessandro) along with its affiliate Manulife
Life Insurance Company (President & CEO: Trevor
Matthews) and The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd. (BTM;
President: Shigemitsu Miki), an affiliate of Mitsubishi
Tokyo Financial Group, Inc. (MTFG; President & CEO:
Shigemitsu Miki) agreed today to enter into a strategic
alliance in individual annuity insurance product
development and sales. At the same time, BTM decided to
invest five billion yen in the preferred stock of
Manulife Life Insurance by March 2004, in light of
establishing a long-term relationship with Manulife
Financial and Manulife Japan.
The purpose of this alliance is to
bring together the advantages of Manulife Life Insurance
as well as its parent company Manulife Financial, one of
the top financial and insurance companies worldwide that
enjoys leading-edge products/service development
capability, and BTM, which has a wide range of excellent
clientele throughout Japan. The companies will cooperate
in using their experiences inside and outside Japan to
develop and sell competitive and innovative products
that can win a significant share in the individual
annuity market in Japan, which is expected to grow
quickly.
BTM has been actively promoting the
sales of individual annuity insurance since it was
deregulated to the banks in October 2002. Among its
product line-up are capital guarantee variable annuity
and foreign currency-denominated fixed annuity insurance
with currency switching features between US dollar and
Euro, a first of its kind to be introduced in Japan. The
alliance with Manulife Financial and Manulife Japan will
provide BTM with the power in product development
through the two companies that have extensive global
experiences including North America, and with the
capability of offering more attractive and cutting-edge
individual annuity insurance products to customers in
Japan. In turn, Manulife Life Insurance will be able to
offer its annuity insurance to a large number of
Japanese customers through BTM.
As the first step of the product
development alliance, BTM plans to launch a new product
in April this year at all of its branches, provided FSA
approval will be issued in time. The product will also
be offered at The Mitsubishi Trust and Banking
Corporation and Mitsubishi Securities Co., Ltd. soon
after.
About Manulife Life Insurance
Company
Since its start of Japan operation in
April 1999, Manulife Life Insurance Company (Manulife
Japan) has been providing customers with innovative
insurance products including universal life insurance,
medical insurance, and investment type annuity. Also
Manulife Japan is proud of its strong financial ground
and holds a top-class "AA+" credit rating from one of
the world's most prestigious credit rating agencies,
Standard and Poor's Co. (As of December 2003)
