On the rise
Sun Life Financial Inc. saw gains after
increase
it reported that fourth-quarter profits grew 3.5 per cent to $744-million, up from $719-million in the same quarter a year earlier.
The Toronto-based insurance provider says its profit for the three months ended Dec. 31, amounted to $1.27 per diluted share, which grew from a profit of $1.22 per diluted share.
On an adjusted basis, Sun Life Financial says it had a profit of $862-million, up 8.8 per cent from the $792-million from the same time a year earlier.
Sun Life had an adjusted profit of $1.47 per diluted share, compared with a profit of $1.34 per diluted share a year earlier.
Analysts on average had expected an adjusted profit of $1.38 per share for the quarter, according to financial data firm Refinitiv.
For the full-year, adjusted profits increased 5.1 per cent to $3.21-billion or $5.49 per diluted share. That was 10 cents per share above forecasts.
Scotia Capital analyst Meny Grauman said: “Despite a solid EPS beat we note that it was driven by unusually strong underlying earnings in the Corporate unit (appears to be impacted by COVID-19) which we don’t expect to repeat. Adjusting for this item, underlying EPS would have been $1.38. That said, there were still a number of key positives this quarter including an impressive performance in the asset management segment, but we also note disappointing results in Canada and Asia where underlying earnings were down 8 per cent year-over-year and 19 per cent year-over-year respectively – although we acknowledge some one-time items here as well.”