Two stories that just popped up on the Globe and Mail website suggest that claims to the effect that Canada's financial sector is holding up relatively well may not be completely unrealistic:
Manulife Financial Corp. winning parts of
American International Group Inc.
are rising sharply as the credit crisis hurts the ability of rival
insurers to knock the Canadian company out of the picture, industry
sources and analysts said.
Manulife and other insurers are expected to bid for AIG divisions as
early as this week, they said. The American insurance giant is under
pressure to sell businesses quickly to repay an $85-billion (U.S.)
Federal Reserve loan that spared it from bankruptcy last month.
An insurance source said Manulife has been working hard on the AIG file
and could end up with big chunks of AIG's Asian or American businesses.
Analysts agreed. “We have expected Manulife to be an aggressive bidder
and nothing we heard on the AIG conference call on Friday leads us to
believe otherwise,” Colin Devine, managing director in New York of
Citigroup Investment Research, said in an interview. “Manulife could
take a quantum leap here and replace AIG as the global insurance stock
to own.”
Sun Life sells CI stake to Scotiabank for $2.3-billion: Sun Life Financial Inc. agreed Monday to sell its 37 per cent stake in
mutual fund giant CI Financial Income Fund to Bank of Nova Scotia for
$2.3-billion in cash.
The deal comes as Sun Life hunts for acquisition opportunities amid
consolidation in the financial services industry resulting from the
credit crisis.
“Sun Life is well-positioned to take advantage of unprecedented
opportunities existing within the global financial services sector
today,” said chief executive officer Donald Stewart. “Unlocking CI's
value now provides Sun Life with enhanced firepower to aggressively
pursue our growth objectives.”
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Too bad it takes the collapse of the international financial industry for Canadian firms to start licking their chops.