Manulife Financial Corporation (NYSE: MFC) delivered second-quarter 2024 core earnings of 66 cents per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3.1%. The bottom line improved 6.4% year over year. Manulife Financial Corp Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise Manulife Financial Corp price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Manulife Financial Corp Quote Core earnings of $1.3 billion (C$1.7 billion) increased 8.3% year over year. The improvement was driven by continued business growth momentum and updates to actuarial methods and assumptions in the second half of 2023, higher fee income from favorable market impacts and positive net flows, a favorable tax true-up, strong growth in Group Insurance and favorable net insurance experience. New business value (NBV) in the reported quarter was $528 million (C$723 million), up 21.4% year over year. New business contractual service margin of $459 million (C$628 million) rose 4.1% year over year. Annualized premium equivalent (APE) sales increased 16.7% year over year to $1.4 billion (C$1.9 billion), attributable to higher sales in Asia and Canada. The expense efficiency ratio increased 30 basis points (bps) to 45.4%. The increase reflects a rise of 6% and 7% in pre-tax core earnings and core expenses, respectively. Wealth and asset management assets under management and administration were $682 billion (C$933.1 billion), up 10.3% year over year. Retail net outflows of $0.1 billion remained unchanged year over year, as increased demand for investment products amid equity market recovery and improved investor sentiment was offset by higher redemptions. Core return on equity, measuring the company's profitability, ...