Sunlife Financial Non-International Financial Reporting Standards

The  Sunlife Financial Inc. prepares its financial statements in accordance with international financial reporting standards ("IFRS”). They use certain financial measures which are not prepared in accordance with IFRS ("non-IFRS financial measures”), including operating net income (loss), as key metrics in their financial reporting to enable  their stakeholders to better assess the underlying performance of  their businesses. Operating net income (loss) and financial information based on operating net income (loss), such as operating ROE, are non-IFRS financial measures. We believe that these non-IFRS financial measures provide information that is useful to investors in understanding our performance and facilitates the comparison of the quarterly and full year results of  their ongoing operations.

The non-IFRS financial measures referred to below do not have a standardized meaning and may not be comparable with similar measures used by other companies. For certain non-IFRS financial measures there are no directly comparable amounts under IFRS. These non-IFRS financial measures should not be viewed as an alternative to measures of financial performance determined in accordance with IFRS.

Operating net income (loss) excludes: (i) the impact of certain hedges in SLF Canada that do not qualify for hedge accounting; (ii) fair value adjustments on share-based payment awards at MFS; (iii) restructuring and other related costs; (iv) goodwill and intangible asset impairment charges; and (v) other items that are not operational or ongoing in nature.

It is not possible to provide reconciliations of their 2015 financial objectives to the most directly comparable IFRS measures on a forward-looking basis because their 2015 financial objectives are projections based on factors and assumptions that are projected to occur in the future and actual results may vary significantly from those projected factors and assumptions.