Sun Life Financial Inc. has seen an improvement in asset management, and its share price is more attractive after a recent decline, RBC Capital Markets analyst Darko Mihelic said.

Mihelic upgraded the company's shares to "outperform" from "sector perform" in a June 7 research note to clients.

The analyst tracked about $500 million in net retail sales for the first two months of the second quarter for MFS Investment Management and about $1.1 billion of institutional outflows during the same period, allowing for some tracking error. That represents "significant improvement" over the first quarter and the fourth quarter of 2016, Mihelic wrote.

MFS disclosed growth in assets under management for May, ending at $459 billion for the month, which was ahead of Mihelic's estimate.

The core EPS estimates are C$3.96 for 2017 and C$4.25 for 2018. The price target remained unchanged at C$51.