A week after Manulife announced that it was reducing its workforce by 700 positions and consolidating some of its back-office functions, it told an institutional investor day in Toronto that it has a clear objective to improve returns in its legacy businesses and has set a target to free up $5 billion in capital from these businesses by 2022.

It also intends to manage its costs and be more competitive, delivering a wide variety of cost-reduction and efficiency opportunities to achieve a 50 per cent efficiency ratio and $1 billion in expense savings and avoidance by 2022.

Manulife said it also hopes to increase its growth and invest in areas of significant opportunity such as Asia, global wealth and asset management and behavioural-linked insurance and group benefits. For this priority, it has set a target to generate two-thirds of core earnings from high potential businesses by 2022.

Last week, Manulife said it plans to recruit and train digital talent as part of a program to digitize, as well as combining its Canadian division headquarters in Kitchener-Waterloo into one location from two.

The 700 positions will be cut over the next 18 months through a voluntary exit program and natural attrition.