Hailey Dolan Marketing & PR Coordinator Hdolan@pgrenewables.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 2, 2019

PINE GATE RENEWABLES FORMS PARTNERSHIP WITH

JOHN HANCOCK ON SOLAR ASSET PORTFOLIO

Asheville, NC—Pine Gate Renewables has entered into a partnership with John Hancock to own and manage 413 megawatts across 35 solar facilities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Oregon.

Pine Gate Renewables–a national utility-scale solar developer, owner, and operator–will continue to operate and provide asset management services for the facilities, while John Hancock is taking an equity interest in the facilities. Terms of the transaction are not being disclosed. The stake was acquired by John Hancock Life Insurance Company and the John Hancock Infrastructure Fund, GP (“JHIF”). JHIF, an infrastructure-focused private equity fund with approximately $2 billion of committed capital, is managed by the John Hancock Power & Infrastructure team.

“Pine Gate has done an excellent job of creating a heavily contracted portfolio of solar facilities. We are pleased to have the opportunity to invest with them,” said Scott Kushner, Managing Director of the John Hancock Power and Infrastructure Group. “The partnership with Pine Gate Renewables continues our strategy of working with best in class developers, owners and operators of renewable projects in the U.S.”

“Pine Gate Renewables is excited to partner with John Hancock to bring clean, reliable solar energy to the grid,” said Chief Executive Officer Ben Catt. “We hope to partner with the John Hancock team on future opportunities as well.”

### About Pine Gate Renewables Pine Gate Renewables is a developer, owner, and operator of utility-scale solar farms based in Charlotte, NC with offices in Asheville, NC and Jacksonville, FL. To learn more about Pine Gate and their mission to Get Solar Done, visit www.pgrenewables.com. About John Hancock and Manulife John Hancock is a division of Manulife Financial Corporation, a leading international financial services group that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. We operate primarily as John Hancock in the United States, and Manulife elsewhere. We provide financial advice, insurance and wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups and institutions. Assets under management and administration by Manulife and its subsidiaries were over CAD$1.1 trillion (US$863 billion) as of September 30, 2018. Manulife Financial Corporation trades as MFC on the TSX, NYSE, and PSE, and under 945 on the SEHK. Manulife can be found at manulife.com. One of the largest life insurers in the United States, John Hancock supports approximately 10 million Americans with a broad range of financial products, including life insurance, annuities, investments, 401(k) plans, and college savings plans. Additional information about John Hancock may be found at johnhancock.com. Manulife and John Hancock offer comprehensive wealth and asset management solutions for institutional and retail investors globally across a broad range of public and private asset classes, as well as asset allocation solutions. Manulife’s Private Markets platform offers long term solutions for clients by leveraging its expertise across private equity and fixed income, real estate and infrastructure equity and debt, timberland and farmland, oil and gas, and mezzanine debt.