FIRST WILSHIRE SECURITIES MANAGEMENT INC

The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company is a subsidiary of Manulife Financial Corporation, which was first founded under the Manufacturers Life Insurance Company name by Sir John Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister, in 1887. The company would expand quickly in its early years, reaching the Caribbean by 1893, Asia by 1897, and the United States by 1903. The company would then experience a great deal of changes and expansions during the 1900s, acquiring companies, introducing more products such as the Disability Income Insurance, and entering the mutual fund market in 1969 after becoming a mutual company. In the late 1900s, the company would grow largely through mergers and acquisitions, making its largest acquisition after the turn of the millennia in 2004 with the John Hancock Financial Services Company. The company operates as a life insurance firm and has offices and business clients established in Asia, Canada, and the United States. Its life insurance products include individual life and individual and group long term care options. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company also has expanded products and services that include financial protection, wealth management, mutual funds, retirement products, annuity contracts and various banking products such as deposit and credit to its Canadian customers. The firm utilizes insurance agents, brokers, securities brokerage firms, financial planners, pension plan sponsors, pension plan consultants, and banks in order to offer its line of products to individual and institutional clients. Manufacturers Life Insurance Company is the main operating company for Manulife Financial, which has employees that number close to 30,000 and over 53,000 agents. While the company is known by its company name throughout the areas it operates in, the United States division is called the John Hancock Life Insurance Company. Some of its notable mutual funds, offered through the parent Manulife company, includes its U.S. Tactical Credit, Strategic Income, Global Balanced, Global Infrastructure, and Yield Opportunities funds.