Canada's Manulife beats analyst earnings estimates for 2016, meets own target

Manulife Financial Corp met its own profit target for 2016 of C$4 billion and exceeded analyst estimates on Thursday, thanks to strength in its Asian operations. The company's core earnings, excluding one-off items and market movements, totaled C$4.02 billion ($3.06 billion), or C$1.96 Canadian cents per share in the full year, compared with C$3.43 million, or C$1.68 Canadian cents per share, a year earlier. Analysts on average had expected earnings of C$1.85 per share, according to Thomson Reut