Two stories that just popped up on the Globe and Mail website suggest that claims to the effect that Canada's financial sector is holding up relatively well may not be completely unrealistic:
Manulife and other insurers are expected to bid for AIG divisions as early as this week, they said. The American insurance giant is under pressure to sell businesses quickly to repay an $85-billion (U.S.) Federal Reserve loan that spared it from bankruptcy last month.
An insurance source said Manulife has been working hard on the AIG file and could end up with big chunks of AIG's Asian or American businesses.
Analysts agreed. “We have expected Manulife to be an aggressive bidder and nothing we heard on the AIG conference call on Friday leads us to believe otherwise,” Colin Devine, managing director in New York of Citigroup Investment Research, said in an interview. “Manulife could take a quantum leap here and replace AIG as the global insurance stock to own.”
Sun Life sells CI stake to Scotiabank for $2.3-billion: Sun Life Financial Inc. agreed Monday to sell its 37 per cent stake in mutual fund giant CI Financial Income Fund to Bank of Nova Scotia for $2.3-billion in cash.
The deal comes as Sun Life hunts for acquisition opportunities amid consolidation in the financial services industry resulting from the credit crisis.
“Sun Life is well-positioned to take advantage of unprecedented opportunities existing within the global financial services sector today,” said chief executive officer Donald Stewart. “Unlocking CI's value now provides Sun Life with enhanced firepower to aggressively pursue our growth objectives.”
Too bad it takes the collapse of the international financial industry for Canadian firms to start licking their chops.
Posted by: Andrew F | October 06, 2008 at 11:26 PM