Hancock still game?

Manulife Financial Corp. may cut back on some of John Hancock's visible sports marketing efforts, executives said, one year after the Canadian company acquired Boston's flagship insurer.

Hancock's well-known sponsorship of the Boston Marathon will continue, executives said. But over the long term, the company will reevaluate its other efforts, including its giant John Hancock sign at Fenway Park, and its sponsorship of Major League Baseball and the Olympics, said John D. DesPrez III, president and chief executive of John Hancock Financial Services Inc. Hancock also has a smaller deal with the Boston Celtics, which it will also reassess, he said.

''We'll continue them as long as we think they're worth what we pay for them. We'll stop them when we don't," DesPrez said. ''We'll look at them from a purely business perspective."

Instead, the company may want to redirect some of that spending into television and other media, DesPrez said. It will continue to promote the Hancock brand aggressively and has no plans to spend less on advertising, he said.

The possible changes to Hancock's sports marketing are among the most visible differences in the company since Manulife acquired Hancock last April. Before the merger with Manulife, Hancock had been well known for sports marketing under the leadership of David D'Alessandro. He and most of Hancock's top management have left.

Since the merger, Hancock has laid off about 240 employees in Boston, and about 90 more left voluntarily or retired. It now employs about 3,900 people in the city.

But Hancock under its new leadership has aggressive growth plans, and a year after the deal, the company is adding jobs in Boston, executives said. Hancock has plans to hire for more than 100 positions, and it is moving an annuities distribution unit, Manulife Wood Logan, to Boston from Connecticut, which is expected to bring about 100 more jobs here.

Over the next several years, Manulife is looking for both major and minor acquisitions that will boost its size and strength in the United States, executives said. The Canadian company has a ''war chest" of about $3 billion that it could use for deals that expand its presence in life insurance, annuities, or mutual funds, said James M. Benson, the president and chief executive of John Hancock Life Insurance Co. Manulife originally earmarked the money for stock buybacks, but Benson said the company has not needed it. Manulife also could use its own stock as currency for acquisitions.

''We could do virtually any transaction if it made sense," Benson said.

So far, the Manulife merger has worked out well for investors. The company's stock closed yesterday at $46.69 , up 60 percent from its price of $29.18 when the Hancock merger was revealed in September 2003.

James Keating, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said Manulife has successfully enticed former Hancock customers into buying large amounts of products, such as variable annuities, where Hancock had no presence. Sales of variable annuities, life insurance, and college savings plans all are increasing rapidly, Hancock executives said.

Manulife operates under the Hancock brand in the United States. Since the merger, it has split the US operations into two parts: Benson, a former Hancock executive, heads the insurance group, while DesPrez, formerly of Manulife USA, heads the wealth management group, which includes annuities and mutual funds. The executives said most decisions about the firm's US operations are made in Boston.

After the merger last year, Wall Street investors speculated Manulife might sell Hancock's undersized mutual fund unit. But DesPrez said the company now has a plan to grow the business, though he would not reveal details yet. Such a plan could include acquisitions of the mutual fund businesses of other companies, or adopting highly performing independent funds into the Hancock distribution system.

In Boston, other changes may be in the works. Its new management team, under Benson and DesPrez, is far less well known than D'Alessandro. DesPrez said he is trying to increase his visibility around town, with more involvement in such organizations as the Massachusetts Business Roundtable and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. Manulife made a $1.5 million donation to the Institute of Contemporary Art, which is building a new home near Hancock's offices in Fort Point Channel.

Despite these other ventures, Hancock's sports marketing remains among the company's most visible efforts around town. Hancock executives, however, now are questioning the value of the signs in Boston, where Hancock already has high brand recognition. ''It's hard to rationalize putting a disproportionate amount of brand development expense into a community where the brand is extraordinarily well known and respected," Benson said.

Hancock's Olympics and MLB sponsorships are national and international in scope, while the Celtics and the Red Sox deals are more local.

If Hancock decides to pull back its sports marketing efforts, it would not be able to leave the bigger sponsorships anytime soon, however. The Olympics sponsorship expires in 2008, while MLB runs through 2009. But the Celtics ads end after the 2005 season, as does the John Hancock sign at Fenway. Hancock executives said the team may cut back on signs but still plans to keep tickets and relationships with sports teams to entertain clients.

DesPrez said Hancock views the marathon sponsorship more as a community involvement effort than as advertising. ''We'll do that forever," he said. On the Hancock sign at Fenway, he said, the firm will make its decision based on what the Red Sox want to charge. Red Sox executives declined to comment on the negotiations. The Celtics have not heard anything from Hancock either way about the sponsorship, said Rich Gotham, the Celtics' executive vice president of sales and marketing.

Sasha Talcott can be reached at stalcott@globe.com.