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Legal & General Group PLC on Thursday said it is ‘ideally positioned’ to benefit from changes in the UK ‘retirement landscape’ as it unveiled new targets for its Retail business. Shares in the London-based insurer were down 1.3% at 239.00 pence each in London on Thursday. L&G also updated on current trading and said it is ‘on track’ to deliver full year group core operating earnings per share growth at the higher end of its 6% to 9% range from 20.23 pence in 2024, and growth in operational surplus generation of greater than 3% from £1.38 billion in 2024. In Institutional Retirement, L&G said it has written, or is exclusive on, £11 billion of pension risk transfer volumes year to date, including £10.2 billion of UK transactions. In Asset Management, L&G said it has reached £71 billion of Private Markets assets under management and delivered annualised net new revenue of £29 million. In Retail, L&G said it has written over £1.2 billion of annuities and continue to sees growing Workplace defined contributions with net new flows of £5 billion. ‘We have good cadence on Workplace DC scheme wins,’ L&G said, noting £3 billion of new scheme assets to transition to L&G in the next 18 months. L&G was updating investors ahead of its investor deep dive retail event on Thursday. Its Retail business serves 12.4 million customers in the UK across four core markets: Workplace, Annuities, Lifetime Mortgages and Protection. L&G said it is ‘ideally positioned’ to benefit from a ‘material structural transformation’ in the UK retirement landscape driven by demographics, regulatory and policy change. This transformation is expected to drive significant growth in both DC assets and flows into retail retirement solutions. L&G has set two near-term targets for Retail: to achieve £40 billion to £50 billion of Workplace DC net flows from 2024 to 2028; and to deliver 4% to 6% Retail operating profit compound annual growth over the same period, driven from the release of reliable earnings in Annuities and Protection, capacity created from the growing annuities asset portfolio, and from increasing operating leverage in Workplace. Over the next decade, growth in Retail operating profit will ‘accelerate’, L&G asserted. The insurer also sees a shift in profit mix and expects that, by 2034, 40% of the profits originated by Retail will be fee-based earnings, a significant increase from below 15% in 2024. Over the same period, it expects the Workplace DC operating margin to double driven by improved operating leverage. Over the longer term, Retail will replace PRT as the growth driver of L&G’s UK annuity asset portfolio, the company said. Copyright 2025 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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