Insurance-product maker sees VAs matching fund sales for Wall St. brokerage. Morgan Stanley has made John Hancock 's variable annuity products -- already the biggest-selling variable annuity in the wirehouse channel according to the Variable Annuity Research Database Service (VARDS) -- available to its roughly 8,000 registered representatives.

Triple A

"Our alliance with Morgan Stanley has been an important one for John Hancock in the mutual-fund space for many years, and we expect similar growth in the variable annuity product as well," says Bob Cassato, executive v.p. at distribution at Boston-based Hancock. "A key factor behind our success in building new [variable annuity] distribution relationships is our strong financial rating."

Cassato is talking about Hancock's new AAA rating from Standard & Poor's.

John Egbert, head of wirehouse distribution at Hancock, says getting variable annuities on Morgan Stanley's platform "opens up opportunities for both firms to increase sales and market share."

Hancock is a unit of Toronto, Canada-based Manulife. -FWR

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