Boston-based John Hancock Financial, the US insurance and asset management subsidiary of Canada’s Manulife Financial, has formed a new tax and estate planning team within its Special Markets Planning Group, to function as a resource for financial planners and advisors. Brandon Buckingham, vice president and advanced planning attorney, has been named as national manager. He will report to Mike Treske, John Hancock variable annuities national sales manager for the financial planner channel. Other regional members of the new group include attorneys Jennifer Gugliotti, who joined John Hancock from KAF Financial Group, and Dru Donatelli, who joined from Sun Life. Both are specialists in tax, estate and retirement planning. The new team is an external complement to John Hancock's 12-person Special Markets Advisory Group, headed by vice president Peter Webster and based in Boston. "We are now in a new era of retirement planning that is much more sophisticated and technical than in decades past," said Hugh McHaffie, president of Wealth Management at John Hancock. Funds under management by Manulife Financial and its subsidiaries were $400.5 billion as at 30 September 2007.