Manulife Asset Management names Jamie Robertson to Portfolio Solutions Group, overseeing Canadian asset allocation

TORONTO, Dec. 8, 2016 /CNW/ -- Manulife Asset Management has named R. James (Jamie) Robertson as a senior portfolio manager to its Portfolio Solutions Group (PSG), subject to regulatory approval. Mr. Robertson is based in Toronto and reports to Nathan Thooft, co-head of PSG for North America. PSG oversees all the multi-asset-class strategies for Manulife Asset Management globally.

Mr. Robertson will be responsible for overseeing Manulife Asset Management's Canadian asset allocation franchise, including portfolio management, research and development, and supporting product development, business development, and trading.

"We are pleased to welcome Jamie to Manulife Asset Management," said Mr. Thooft. "He is a senior investment professional with a long history of managing asset allocation portfolios. We believe our clients and our firm will benefit from his expertise and his leadership of Canadian portfolio management across a wide range of multi-asset and multi-manager solutions. Jamie leads the PSG team in Toronto and will work closely with the other members of PSG in the United States and Asia."

Most recently, Mr. Robertson was Chief Investment Officer with McLean and Partners in Calgary, where he was responsible for driving and improving the investment performance of multi-asset-class portfolios at one of Canada's largest private wealth management companies, with assets of more than one billion dollars. Prior to that, he served as Vice President, Propriety Investments (Equities) at Manulife Financial, where he helped increase equity holdings to more than C$800 million with exposures in all major international markets.

He earned an MBA from Concordia University, Montreal, and holds the Canadian Investment Manager Designation (C.I.M.) from the Canadian Securities Institute.

About Manulife Asset Management

Manulife Asset Management is the global asset management arm of Manulife, providing comprehensive asset management solutions for investors. This investment expertise extends across a broad range of public and private asset classes, as well as asset allocation solutions. As at September 30, 2016, assets under management for Manulife Asset Management were approximately C$450 billion (US$343 billion, GBP£263 billion, EUR€305 billion).

Manulife Asset Management's public markets units have investment expertise across a broad range of asset classes including public equity and fixed income, and asset allocation strategies. Offices with full investment capabilities are located in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. In addition, Manulife Asset Management has a joint venture asset management business in China, Manulife TEDA. The public markets units of Manulife Asset Management also provide investment management services to affiliates' retail clients through product offerings of Manulife and John Hancock. John Hancock Asset Management is a division of Manulife Asset Management.

Additional information about Manulife Asset Management may be found at ManulifeAM.com.

About Manulife

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services group providing forward-thinking solutions to help people with their big financial decisions. We operate as John Hancock in the United States, and Manulife elsewhere. We provide financial advice, insurance and 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 manulife.com or johnhancock.com.

SOURCE Manulife Asset Management

Beth McGoldrick, 617 663 4751, [email protected], http://www.manulife.com