Manulife Financial Corp. plan a domestic offering up to $600 million of medium term notes, the company said Wednesday.

The medium term notes, to be offered on a best efforts basis through an agency syndicate led by RBC Dominion Securities Inc. and Scotia Capital Inc., are expected to be issued on April 8. The notes will pay a fixed rate of 7.768% until maturity on April 8, 2019.

The notes will be direct unsecured obligations of the company and will rank equally with all other unsecured indebtedness of the company that is not subordinated, the company says.

Manulife says the net proceeds of the offering will re-finance indebtedness of a subsidiary that was repaid upon maturity from internal resources in December 2008, and will be utilized for general corporate purposes of the company, including investments in subsidiaries.

Manulife intends to file in Canada a pricing supplement to its short form base shelf prospectus dated March 12, 2007 and prospectus supplement dated March 27, 2007 (as amended by amendment no. 1 dated December 8, 2008 to the prospectus supplement) in respect of this issue.

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/April2009/01/c6386.html