Manulife Financial Teams with IBM for Business Growth

December 23, 2004; 01:01 PM

Manulife Financial (www.manulife.com), the world's fourth largest insurance company, and IBM announced today a $70 million Cdn agreement to transfer the management of Maritime Life's technology infrastructure to IBM starting next year.

As part of this agreement, IBM will manage Manulife's desktop PCs and servers as a service with variable pricing and the ability to scale up and down based on customer demand.

In April of this year, Manulife Financial acquired Maritime Life as part of its merger with John Hancock Financial Services, Inc., and is turning to IBM for technology support for the Canadian acquisition.

This agreement also supports Manulife's strategic initiative to integrate acquisitions more efficiently and at a lower cost while having a flexible IT infrastructure that continues to serve the needs of Manulife's customers as the company grows.

This agreement is expected to provide Manulife with significant savings in information technology (IT) costs over the next four years.

Starting in 2005, IBM will provide Manulife with access to its computing resources to enhance the quality, performance and delivery of Maritime Life's technology systems. Under the agreement, IBM will take over the management of 3,000 desktop PCs and 200 mid-range servers.

"It is important to us to build on our existing relationship with IBM as an IT partner," said John Mather, Chief Information Officer and Senior Executive Vice President of Manulife Financial.

This agreement builds upon Manulife's existing relationship that was announced in 2002. Under that agreement, IBM provides technology services and infrastructure support for the insurance company's North American operations, including help desk services, servers, storage, and desktop computers.