Is Manulife Stock 'Depressed?' Ask the Lady in the Bikini

(MoneyWatch)  Canadian insurer Manulife hasn't been doing well lately. Its shares have been on a rollercoaster ride this past year - falling to below $7 a share, rebounding to almost $25 and then dropping back again after the company announced it was diluting its stock by trying to sell some more, in fact about $2.5 billion of equity.

One of its largest shareholders, Stephen Jarislowsky of Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd., told the Toronto Globe and Mail that he is "terribly disappointed" with Manulife's stock sale. "I think it's pretty god-awful that there was really no warning about this coming," he complained.

Manulife has suffered the same way as other insurers. Blessed - or cursed - with a massive stock portfolio, it took a hit during the recession. And like other life insurers, Manulife competed aggressively in the variable life insurance market, offering guaranteed returns based on the performance of the stock market portfolio the previous CEO left unhedged, according to the Globe.

Current CEO Donald Guloien gets good marks for trying to rebuild capital, but is apparently not doing well with investors. Credit Suisse also called the move "a surprise" and lowered its earnings estimates because of the dilution.

But the life and health insurer scored some major points for its investigative work when it came to the strange case of Nathalie Blanchard, a Quebec woman who took long-term sick leave from her job at IBM because she was "depressed."

Somehow Manulife found her Facebook page on which Nathalie displayed pictures of herself at a Chippendales show (male strippers, not furniture), at a happy birthday party, and wearing a skimpy bikini posing on the beach. That one was even used in the New York Daily News.

Then Manulife cut off poor Nathalie's monthly sick-leave benefits, raising the ire of Nathalie and her lawyer. They claim that these somewhat revealing photos don't show that she's not depressed (although she does admit to feeling better). Nathalie says her doctors advised her to have fun. What they probably didn't advise her to do was brag about it on Facebook.