Manulife Financial Corporation (MFC) National Bank Financial 22nd Annual Financial Services Conference (Transcript)

Manulife Financial Corporation (NYSE:MFC) National Bank Financial 22nd Annual Financial Services Conference March 27, 2024 11:05 AM ET

Company Participants

Colin Simpson - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Gabriel Dechaine - National Bank Financial

Gabriel Dechaine

All right. Welcome back to the stage here. And I'd like to welcome Colin Simpson, Manulife's Chief Financial Officer, who has been in the job for almost a year. And it's gotten really exciting over the past three months or so…

Colin Simpson

It’s more than that it's felt like.

Gabriel Dechaine

And that's helped the question -- coming up with questions for this. So thanks for joining us today.

Colin Simpson

No, awesome, Gabe. And it's great to be here. Great conference and really great -- great schedule of investors.

Question-and-Answer Session

Q - Gabriel Dechaine

Good to know. Long term care, let's start with that, the big topic that's been a game changer as far as Manulife stock price is concerned, big transaction announced in December, I guess. One thing that popped the mind was it's an issue that I'd always feel the pulse with management over the years and others have, and the comment was there's some interest but the bid ask spread is still quite wide. What changed?

Colin Simpson

So a number of things happened really. And you can link them all, but I think higher interest rates have certainly helped. It's helped bring more capital into the life insurance space. And we transacted with a private equity backed insurer, reinsurer. And so obviously, their sources of capital were comfortable putting money to work into the life sector. And so with higher interest rates, you can imagine more capital is flowing into the LTC space, but that's a macro perspective. I think from a much more company specific space, our books have got more mature. So the funnel of doubt for all the