Manulife posts $1.79B Q2 net income

Manulife reported a net income attributed to shareholders of $1.79 billion for the second quarter, up 72% compared to $1.04 billion for the same period last year, the insurance giant announced Thursday.

Net income for its Canadian business was $390 million, nearly four times higher than the $79 million reported in the second quarter of 2024.

Core earnings in Canada for the first half of 2025 were $793 million, up $27 million compared to the same period last year. Manulife attributed the increase to group insurance business growth and higher expected investment earnings.

However, annual premium equivalent sales in Canada fell 34% to $345 million when compared to the second quarter of 2024. This was mainly due to a large group insurance sale not recurring. Individual insurance sales increased $43 million to $152 million from higher participating life insurance sales. Annuities sales fell 3%, to $57 million.

The insurer’s global wealth and asset management division posted core earnings of $463 million in the second quarter, up 19% compared to the same period last year. This was driven by net fee income from higher assets under management and administration (AUMA) due to favourable market impacts and net inflows in institutional asset management.

Net inflows in global wealth and asset management were $946 million, compared to $82 million in the same quarter of 2024. Retirement net inflows of $2 billion came from higher retirement plan sales. Institutional asset management inflows were $2.1 billion, driven by lower redemptions in fixed income mandates, partially offset by higher redemptions in equity mandates.

Meanwhile, retail net outflows of $3.2 billion came from lower net sales through third-party intermediaries in North America and in money market funds in mainland China, partially offset by higher sales through Manulife’s retail wealth platform.

As of June 30, 2025, Manulife had $1.6 trillion in AUMA, up 3% from December 31, 2024, primarily from favourable equity market results and partially offset by the asset transfer from the RGA U.S. reinsurance transaction.

In Canada, Manulife had $148.8 billion in assets under management.

Manulife announced a dividend of $0.44 per common share.

Jonathan Got

Jonathan Got is a reporter with Advisor.ca and its sister publication, Investment Executive. Reach him at jonathan@newcom.ca.