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Serge Godin, chief executive of CGI Inc.RYAN REMIORZ/The Canadian Press

CGI Group Inc. has been awarded a $142-million, seven-year contract to provide infrastructure services and consolidate the U.S. data centres of John Hancock Financial Services Inc., a subsidiary of Manulife Financial Corp.

The Montreal-based IT services company said Wednesday it will consolidate three data centres run by John Hancock in New England with its two locations in Montreal.

The result will be two data centres operated by CGI in Andover, Mass., and downtown Boston.

The change won't result in job losses and the affected John Hancock employees will be transferred to CGI, which is investing to grow its base of operations in the New England area.

CGI will also provide its "infrastructure as a service" that will allow John Hancock to manage day-to-day operations for its clients and partners, through CGI's operations.

The contract is an expansion and extension of the last contract with John Hancock and Manulife, which has been a customer since 2004.

CGI will take over the remaining two-thirds of the infrastructure management functions that have been performed in-house by John Hancock for its U.S. business units.

Allan Hackney, John Hancock's chief information officer, said CGI's service will provide "significant efficiency improvements for our application teams."

"CGI's team listened closely and crafted a solution that was carefully tailored to our specific needs," he stated. "Additionally, the low-risk service transition plan was a clear differentiator for us."

Founded in 1976, CGI Group Inc. is the sixth largest independent information technology and business process services firm in the world. It employs approximately 72,000 workers in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific and has $10.4-billion of annual revenue.

John Hancock has been in operation for 150 years and provides financial protection and wealth management services for clients. Manulife and its subsidiaries have $514-million of funds under management as of June 30.

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