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.jpg) Headquarters at One Coleman Street, London. | |
| Company type | Public limited company |
|---|---|
| LSE: LGEN FTSE 100 Component | |
| Industry | Financial services Asset management |
| Founded | 1836; 190 years ago (1836) |
| Headquarters | London, England, UK |
Key people |
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| Products | Investments, Lifetime Mortgages, Pensions, Annuities, Life Insurance |
| Revenue |  £10.574 billion (2024)[1] |
| £0.542 billion (2024)[1] | |
 £0.195 billion (2024)[1] | |
| AUM | £1,134.8 billion (2024)[1] |
| Total assets | £544.167 billion (2024)[1] |
| Total equity | £3.511 billion (2024)[1] |
| Website | group |
Legal & General Group plc, commonly known asLegal & General orL&G, is a Britishmultinationalfinancial services andasset management company headquartered inLondon, England. Its products and services includeinvestment management, lifetime mortgages (a form ofequity release),pensions,annuities, andlife insurance. As of January 2020, it no longer provides general insurance following the sale of Legal & General Insurance to Allianz, a portfolio that primarily included home insurance and a small number of pet insurance policies.[2]
Legal & General is listed on theLondon Stock Exchange and is a constituent of theFTSE 100 Index. Legal & General's Asset Management business is ranked as the 18th largest asset manager globally and the largest in the United Kingdom, by assets under management (AUM).[3] It is also the second largest institutional investment management firm in Europe (afterBlackRock).[4]
| Legal and General Life Assurance Society's Act 1878 | |
|---|---|
| Act of Parliament | |
.svg) | |
| Long title | An Act to enable the Legal and General Life Assurance Society to sue and be sued in the name of a public officer, and to make provision as to the vesting of the funds and property of the Society in the trustees from time to time of the Societyl and for other purposes. |
| Citation | 41 & 42 Vict. c. xxiii |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 16 April 1878 |
| Other legislation | |
| Repealed by | Legal and General Assurance Society Limited Act 1922 |
Status: Repealed | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
| Legal and General Assurance Society Limited Act 1922 | |
|---|---|
| Act of Parliament | |
.svg) | |
| Citation | 12 & 13 Geo. 5. c. xvii |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 31 May 1922 |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
Legal & General was formed by Sergeant John Adams and five other lawyers in June 1836 in a Chancery Lane coffee shop.[5] Originally called theNew Law Life Assurance Society, the society was restricted to those in the legal profession. The name was changed toLegal & General Life Assurance Society to reflect that policies were available to the general public but with share ownership restricted to those in the legal profession. The group expanded in the UK and soon began to acquire overseas life insurance companies, purchasing a pensions business from theMetropolitan Life Assurance Company of New York in the 1930s.[5]
The society became a wholly owned division ofLegal & General Group plc in the 1970s.[6] Legal & General Group, formed Legal & General America as a holding company in 1981, and bought Government Employees Life Insurance Company (GELICO) and its NY affiliate. The GELICO name changed to Banner in 1983. William Penn was purchased by Legal & General Group Plc as a wholly owned subsidiary of Banner Life Insurance Company in 1989. It bought the Dutch branch ofUnlike Assurance Group and also set up business in France during the 1980s.[6]
Following the trend in the United Kingdom at the time of financial institutions entering the estate agency sector, Legal & General purchased Whitegates Estate Agency fromProvident Financial Group plc for £19 million[7] in December 1989.[8]
In the 1940s the main office of Legal & General was moved from Temple Bar House in the City of London to a remodelled former girls' school in leafyKingswood,Surrey, save for some top management functions which remained in London. The girls' school (St. Monica's), which formed the basis for the site, was attended by the novelistVera Brittain, mother of the politicianShirley Williams.[9] The Kingswood site, which included sports fields, a park, a large and luxurious swimming pool, a canteen and a simulacrum of an Englishpub, among other facilities, was expanded in the 1950s and again in the 1980s.[10] In 2015, it was announced that the headquarters would close "potentially before 2025".[11][12] In fact, after a period of uncertainty for the staff at Kingswood,[13] it was announced that the site would shut much earlier, in 2018.[14]
The previous Legal & General logo incorporates the image of theTemple Bar (which is still used in the logo of the company's social and athletic committee), and the founding date. The umbrella logo used today was introduced by former Chief Press Officer Gordon Macdonald in June 1984. Between 1991 and 1994, Legal and General sponsored the Regional Weather Forecasts for theITV network and in 1999, Legal & General announced plans, which never came to fruition, to merge its business withNational Westminster Bank to form the first 'bancassurance' company in the UK.[15]
The company sold theLegal & General Bank andLegal & General Mortgage Services toNorthern Rock in 2003[16] and sold its stake inGresham Insurance, its joint venture withBarclays Bank, to Barclays in 2005.[17]
In 2008 Legal & General boughtSuffolk Life, a provider of Self Invested Pension products,[18] sold Suffolk Life in 2016 and also outsourced its IT development areas toTCS (Tata Consultancy Services).[19] The company formed a joint venture with two Indian public sector banks, Bank of Baroda and Andhra Bank to launch IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company in India in 2009[20] and outsourced some IT areas toIBM in October 2010.[21] In 2013 the company bought Lucida Life, a pensions buyout company, for £151 million.[22]
In 2014, there was a "shock" announcement that Legal & General was leaving as one of theAssociation of British Insurers (ABI)'s around 300 corporate members, due to ABI's "decision to transfer its investment business to theInvestment Management Association."[23] In the same year, the group disposed of its estate agency business, Xperience, which comprised 89 offices and 75 franchisees, trading as CJ Hole, Ellis and Co, Parkers and Whitegates,[24] to Martin & Co for £6 million.[25]
Legal & General took a 46.5% stake in housebuilderCala Homes in March 2013,[26] taking full control of the company five years later.[27] In parallel, in 2015, Legal & General launched amodular homes operation, L&G Modular Homes, opening a factory inSherburn-in-Elmet, nearSelby in Yorkshire.[28] Production was halted in May 2023, with L&G blaming planning delays and theCOVID-19 pandemic for its failure to grow its sales pipeline; 450 factory workers faced being made redundant.[29][30] By the time it had closed, the enterprise incurred total losses over seven years of £295m[31] - a figure revised upwards to £359m in September 2024.[32] In March 2024, Legal & General began to exit the housing market, appointingRothschild & Co to handle the sale of Cala Homes, valued at around £750m. In 2022, Cala had sold 3,000 homes and employed 1,300 staff.[33][34] In May 2024,Persimmon,Taylor Wimpey and Avant Homes were considering bids,[35] but in September 2024, Cala Homes was sold to its previous ownerPatron Capital and investment firmSixth Street Partners for £1.35bn.[36]
In 2014, the company formed Legal & General Reinsurance, a Bermudian-based reinsurance company. Legal & General Re completed its maiden external transaction in the Dutch market in cooperation with ASR in December 2015.[37] In May 2016 Legal & General Assurance in the UK bought the £3 billion UK annuity portfolio ofAegon.[38]
In 2019 following earlier speculation,[39][40] the company agreed the sale of its General Insurance division, Legal & General Insurance, toAllianz Insurance, the latter making a simultaneous purchase of the remaining 51% share ofLiverpool Victoria General Insurance (LV=) of which it already owned 49%.[41] The acquisition took effect on 1 January 2020, at which time Legal & General Insurance's holding company was renamed Fairmead Insurance.[42] The existing policies will be merged into Allianz Insurance's subsidiary LV= under one expanded business. Legal & General's Birmingham office became an LV= site.[43]
Also in 2019, the company acquired a 13% investment in the electric vehicle charging point operator, Pod Point.[44]
In 2023, the company assumed full liability for the entire pension scheme ofBoots through a buy-in arrangement.[45]
In 2024, Legal & General merged its asset management subsidiary, Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), with its alternative assets unit, Legal & General Capital, to form a unified Asset Management business.[46]
In February 2025, Legal & General announced the sale of its U.S. general insurance subsidiary to Meiji Yasuda for 2.3 billion dollars.[47]
The company offers a wide range of products in addition to its direct sales service and brokerage agreements with numerous tied agents andindependent financial advisers.[48]
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Ron Peet (1925–2020), a socially-consciousactuary, was CEO of Legal & General, having previously headed its Australian operation.[49] Peet helped the campaign forThalidomide children, Legal & General then owning a large bloc of shares (3.5 million) in Scottish drinks and pharmaceutical companyDistillers.[50][51]
Sir David Prosser (1944–2020) was the CEO from 1991 to 2005 and is credited with overseeing a period of significant growth in the business.[52] He was followed by Tim Breedon, who became CEO in January 2006.[53] After that SirNigel Wilson (the previous CFO) became group chief executive on 30 June 2012,[54] and was succeeded byAntónio Simões in 2023.[55]
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