Four new funds at Manulife

Toronto-based Manulife Mutual Funds has launched four new mutual funds: Manulife Global Balanced Fund, Manulife U.S. Dollar Floating Rate Income Fund, Manulife Canadian Conservative Balanced Fund and Manulife Preferred Income Class. Manulife Global Balanced Fund seeks to provide investors with a diversified approach to global equities and fixed-income investing and will be managed by Calgary-based Mawer Investment Management Ltd. Manulife U.S. Dollar Floating Rate Income Fund is a U.S.-dollar (US$) version of Manulife Floating Rate Income Fund and generates US$ income through investment in short-duration, senior bank loans that periodically adjust their income as interest rates rise. This fund will be managed by Boston-based Manulife Asset Management (U.S.) LLC. Manulife Canadian Conservative Balanced Fund seeks to generate income and capital appreciation, primarily through exposure to a diversified portfolio of Canadian fixed-income and equities securities. Manulife Preferred Income Class seeks to generate steady income and achieve capital appreciation by investing primarily in preferred shares, royalty and income trusts, and fixed-income securities of Canadian companies, all within the tax-deferred corporate-class structure. The portfolio manager for the latter two funds will be Toronto-based Manulife Asset Management Ltd. Advisor commissions on all the above funds are 0%-5% for front-end sales, 5% for deferred sales and 2% for the low-load option. Redemption fees begin at 6% in Year 1 and end at zero after Year 6 for the regular DSC schedule; or begin at 3% and end at zero after Year 3 for the low-load schedule. Minimum investment is $1,000. For individual trailing commissions and management fees, visit www.manulife.ca.

(cohara@investmentexecutive.com).