HONG KONG : Canada's Manulife Financial Corp plans at least two more top-tier hires in China this month as it targets the pensions business in the fast-ageing society after taking full control of a joint venture, senior executives said.
Having 100 per cent ownership of a local unit with access to China's newly launched private pension scheme will help Manulife accelerate its plans to tap the retirement business opportunity, Paul Lorentz, CEO of Manulife Investment Management , told Reuters in an interview last week. China's 1.4 billion population shrank last year for the first time in 61 years. Its National Health Commission expects the cohort of people aged 60 and over to rise from 280 million to more than 400 million by 2035 - equal to the entire current populations of Britain and the U.S. combined.