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TORONTO, Jan. 27, 2017 /CNW/ - Manulife Investments today
announced the three year Morningstar Rating for its Manulife U.S. Monthly High Income Fund. This Fund, launched on December 24, 2013 has achieved a 4-Star rating1 from Morningstar, has over $1.1 billion in assets under management and has achieved top-quartile performance in Morningstar's Global
Neutral balanced category with over 840 competitors, since inception.
"In addition to capital appreciation, and regular income, we strive to protect capital in down markets and provide positive
absolute returns. The popularity of the Manulife Monthly High Income Fund2 and the long-term success of the investment
strategy made it an obvious choice to extend to the U.S. market in 2013," said Alan Wicks, Senior
Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager, Manulife Asset Management Limited. "Our fundamental scalable and repeatable
proprietary process and investing philosophy has been unchanged since our team was founded in 1996, and allows us to deliver the
kind of results our unitholders have come to expect."
Value Equity Team
The value equity team manages the asset allocation and equity investments for the Manulife U.S. Monthly High Income
Fund. This team, formed in 1996, continues to be led by Alan Wicks and consists of 10 members
managing over C$17 billion across multiple mandates that span the globe. Senior leadership of this
team includes Duncan Anderson, Jonathan Popper and Conrad
Dabiet.
Fixed Income Team
The fixed income team is led by Howard Greene, Head of U.S. Investment Grade Fixed
Income, Manulife Asset Management (US) LLC, who is based in the U.S. and has more than 30 years' experience managing fixed
income.
"This Star Rating1 speaks to the strength of Alan's team," said Bernard Letendre,
President, Manulife Investments. "The Manulife U.S. Monthly High Income Fund uses the same prudent investment philosophy as the
successful Manulife Monthly High Income Fund 2, but applies that approach to the larger, dynamic U.S.
market."
The Morningstar Rating is a quantitative assessment of a fund's past performance, both return and risk, as measured from one
to five stars. It rewards consistent performance and reduces the possibility of strong short-term performance masking the
inherent risk of a fund. For more information, see www.morningstar.ca
1Performance for the Series F version of this Fund for the period ended December 31,
2016 is 6.55% (1 year), 7.38% (3 years), N/A (5 years), N/A (10 years) and 7.35% (since inception on December 24, 2013).
Source: Morningstar Direct as of December 31, 2016 using Manulife U.S. Monthly High Income Fund
(Series F). Series F performance is net of fees and expenses. Series A is also available and includes a 1.00% trailing
commission.
2This Fund has been capped to all new purchases as of August 28, 2015.
The Star Ratings and quartile rankings as of December 31, 2016 for the Manulife U.S. Monthly
High Income Fund (Series F) and the number of funds within the U.S. balanced category for each period are as follows: 1 year
period, 1166 funds, 4 stars, 1st quartile; 3 year period, 834 funds, 4 stars, 1st quartile.
The Morningstar Rating, commonly referred to as the Star Rating, relates how a fund has performed on a risk-adjusted basis
against its Morningstar category peers and is subject to change every month. Funds are ranked by their Morningstar Risk-Adjusted
Return scores with the top 10% of funds in a category receiving 5 stars, the top 22.5% receiving 4 stars. A fund in the middle
35% receiving 3 stars, a fund in the next 22.5% receiving 2 stars and a fund in the bottom 10% receiving 1 star. Please refer to
www.morningstar.ca for greater detail on the calculation
of the Star Ratings. Quartile rankings are determined by Morningstar Research Inc. The quartile measure shows how well a fund has
performed compared to all other funds in its Morningstar category peer group and are subject to change every month. The quartiles
divide the data into four equal regions. The Top 25% of funds are in the first quartile, the next 25% of funds are in the second,
and the next group is in the third quartile. The 25% of funds with the poorest performance are in the fourth quartile.
Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with mutual fund investments. Please
read the fund facts as well as the prospectus before investing. The indicated rates of return are the historical annual
compounded total returns including changes in unit value and reinvestment of all distributions and do not take into account
sales, redemption, distribution or optional charges or income taxes payable by any security holder that would have reduced
returns. Mutual funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated.
For more information, please visit manulifemutualfunds.ca or contact Manulife Customer Service at the following numbers:
English: 1-888-588-7999
French: 1-877-426-9991
About Manulife Investments
Manulife Investments, a division of Manulife Asset Management Limited, builds on 125 years of Manulife's wealth and investment
management expertise in managing assets for Canadian investors. As one of Canada's leading
integrated financial services providers, Manulife Investments and its affiliates offer a variety of products and services
including segregated fund contracts, mutual funds, annuities and guaranteed interest contracts.
About Manulife
Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services group that helps people achieve their dreams and
aspirations by putting customers' needs first and providing the right advice and solutions. We operate 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 2015, we had approximately 34,000 employees, 63,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving 20 million
customers. At the end of September 2016, we had $966 billion
(US$736 billion) in assets under management and administration, and in the previous 12 months we
made more than $24.4 billion in benefits, interest and other 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. Follow Manulife on Twitter @ManulifeNews or visit www.manulife.com or
www.johnhancock.com.
SOURCE Manulife Financial Corporation
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