Strong Asian performance in wealth management is helping drive results at Manulife, the Toronto-listed insurance and financial services group has reported.

Strong Asian performance in wealth management is helping drive results at Manulife, the Toronto-listed insurance and financial services group has reported.

The firm, in giving third-quarter 2014 results, said it reported “strong wealth sales of C$11.7 billion ($10.3 billion), in line with a year ago.

“Asia wealth sales continued to build momentum, benefiting from successful product launches, marketing campaigns and improved investor sentiment in Indonesia,” Manulife said a statement late last week.

In its home market of Canada, wealth sales declined, it said, "reflecting normal variability in large case group retirement sales and lower new bank loan volumes (which we include in wealth sales) due to competitive rate pressures in a slowing residential mortgage market”.

In the US, mutual fund sales continued to be strong, but declined relative to the prior year, the firm said.

Adding to details on Asia, Manulife said it “achieved record insurance sales on a constant currency basis, with double digit growth in Hong Kong, Indonesia and our Asia Other businesses as well as continued success in Japan”.

In the third quarter, the firm’s Asia division logged wealth sales of $2.2 billion, 74 per cent higher than a year ago and year-to-date sales of $5.6 billion were 14 per cent lower than the same period of 2013. The year-to-date fall in sales was due to less favourable market sentiment in several Asian markets in the first half of 2014 compared to the same period of 2013, the strong launch of the Strategic Income Fund in the first half of 2013 and lower investor demand for products in Japan.

Japan wealth sales of $516 million increased 140 per cent; Hong Kong wealth sales were $366 million, up 50 per cent on the same period a year earlier. Indonesia wealth sales stood at $239 million, surging by 93 per cent, and Asia Other wealth sales were $1.0 billion, a jump of 57 per cent, driven by the increase in mutual fund sales in China, Taiwan and Thailand, it said.

The firm said it logged its 24th consecutive quarter of record funds under management, driven by solid net flows in asset management and group retirement businesses. Total funds under management stood at C$663 billion at the end of September this year.

For the group as a whole, it reported net income attributable to shareholders of C1.1 billion for the quarter, versus C$1.034 billion a year ago.

During the quarter, Manulife entered an agreement with Standard Life Oversea Holdings Limited, a subsidiary of UK-listed Standard Life to buy the Canada-based operations of Standard Life for around C$4 billion in cash. The deal was approvedy by Standard Life shareholders on 3 October.