SunLife president eyeing acquisitions in the U.S.

Acquiring a life insurance company in the United States is an option that Sun Life Financial Inc. is willing to entertain, Jon Boscia, president of the Canadian financial services firm, said today. “Life insurance is the No. 1 priority in terms of acquisition opportunities if we found something attractive here in the U.S.— that's where we are further away from having the benefits of scale,” he said at Sun Life's Investor Day in New York. But making such an acquisition may take some time, Mr. Boscia noted in an interview. “I think there will be some passage of time while companies wait to see stocks rebound, even more than where they are currently, before they start talking about potentially selling,” he added. Some insurance units will come on the market in the next 12 to 18 months as companies complete strategic reviews and decide to jettison their businesses, Mr. Boscia predicted. The sale of whole companies won't happen for two to three years, he said. “There's a strategic repositioning track that's coming sooner than the outright sale of companies,” Mr. Boscia added. “But both will come. We want to make sure we're in the pipeline, that we're in the deal flow and that we have opportunities to look at both of those.” Mr. Boscia also noted that while the acquisition of a stand-alone broker-dealer isn't high on Sun Life's list, the chance to buy a life carrier with a retail distribution unit would be an attractive opportunity.
Sun Life has made a couple of acquisitions over the course of the last two years, including its purchase this summer of Lincoln National Corp's U.K. business, as well as the 2007 acquisition of Genworth Financial Inc.'s employee benefits group. U.S. defined-contribution plans are another area of interest for the company, but that there are fewer acquisition opportunities in that line of business, compared with the life insurance market.