Sun Life to sell its Sponsored Markets business to Canadian Premier

Torys is acting as counsel to Sun Life with a team led by (Ricco) A.S. Bhasin and that includes Sophie Courtois, Crystal Chung, Parker Baglole and Kirsten Hentschel (insurance M&A), Ebad Rahman (commercial arrangements), Jill McCutchen and Melissa Prado (insurance regulatory), Susan Nickerson and Christophe Cinqmars-Viau (employment), Omar Wakil and Ian Li (competition), Molly Reynolds and Ronak Shah (privacy) and Andrew Wong (tax).

On December 13, 2021, Canadian Premier Life Insurance Company ("Canadian Premier") entered into an agreement to acquire the sponsored markets business of Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada ("SLA"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Sun Life Financial Inc. ("Sun Life").

The sponsored markets business includes a variety of association & affinity, and group creditor clients. The transaction will see over 100 plan sponsors and roughly 1.5 million insured clients and plan members/customers move from Sun Life to Canadian Premier. Upon close, this transaction will build on Canadian Premier's longstanding presence and expertise in the Canadian market.

The transaction is expected to close in early 2023, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including receipt of regulatory approvals.

Upon the close of the transaction, Sun Life expects to generate a one-time after-tax gain of approximately C$65 million, with a corresponding 1% increase to the Sun Life and SLA Life Insurance Capital Adequacy Test ratios, and approximately C$0.03 reduction in annual underlying earnings per share going forward.

Further information can be found on Canada Newswire’s website.

Canadian Premier offers individual term and group life, accident & sickness, credit and creditor insurance solutions to a number of leading financial institutions, retailers and affinity groups, insuring over 2 million Canadians and families coast-to-coast.

Sun Life is a leading international financial services organization providing insurance, wealth and asset management solutions to individual and corporate clients. Sun Life has operations in a number of markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bermuda. As of September 30, 2021, Sun Life had total assets under management of C$1.39 trillion.