Manulife renames equities team, announces plan to discontinue DSCs

Effective Aug. 3, Manulife Investment Management’s Canadian value equity team will be renamed the Manulife Investment Management essential equity team.

The Toronto-based asset manager announced the change on Tuesday, noting that the new name reflects the team’s broad mandate, which has expanded from Canadian equities to global and U.S. equities.

Alan Wicks, senior managing director, senior portfolio manager and founder of the team, will continue to serve as team head and will shift away from portfolio management activities on Jan. 2, 2022.

“I’m immensely proud of the team that has been built over the years, the performance we have delivered and the relationships we have formed with clients,” Wicks said in a release.

Also on Tuesday, Manulife announced it plans to discontinue deferred sales charge (DSC) mutual funds, including low-load sales charge options, on or before May 31, 2022. A nationwide ban on DSCs takes effect June 1, 2022.

In addition to discontinuing DSC funds, Manulife will stop paying trailing commissions to order-execution-only brokerages — a practice that is also being banned.

Manulife is also changing the names of two products. Effective Aug. 3, the Manulife Value Balanced Fund will be called the Manulife Global Monthly High Income Fund. The Manulife Value Balanced Class will be renamed the Manulife Global Monthly High Income Class.

The asset manager is also changing certain funds’ risk ratings. For further details, see Manulife’s release.

Staff

The staff of Advisor.ca have been covering news for financial advisors since 1998.