LONDON, March 12, 2026, 14:56 GMT
Legal & General shares leveled off on Thursday, with the insurer launching the initial phase of its record buyback and recouping just a fraction of Wednesday’s decline. At 12:26 GMT, the stock traded at 242.8 pence, up 0.75% for the day.
This move matters for António Simões, who’s banking on those cash returns to keep investors patient as he reshapes the group. L&G has committed to £2.4 billion in shareholder returns for the coming year. Still, what keeps grabbing the market’s attention is that Solvency II coverage ratio—a key capital gauge—at 203% at year-end and 210% pro forma. Both numbers trail the 232% reported a year ago and fall short of what analysts were looking for.
That tension was enough to spark Wednesday’s drop. L&G delivered a 6% jump in annual core operating profit, but investors latched onto the fact that results still came in below forecasts and the capital cushion shrank. Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell, said the earnings miss took the shine off the buyback, calling it “unfortunate but not catastrophic.” Reuters
The stock exchange filing Thursday detailed that the first tranche permits as much as £600 million in buybacks through Sept. 18, executed via a non-discretionary deal with Barclays. Every share repurchased gets cancelled. This step comes just a day after the company’s results outlined a £1.2 billion total buyback and a full-year dividend of 21.79 pence, a 2% increase.
Simões, in the results statement, pointed to “meaningful progress in reshaping L&G”. Legal & General posted a core operating profit of £1.623 billion for 2025, with core operating earnings per share coming in at 20.93 pence. Legal & General Group
Institutional Retirement, which includes L&G’s pension risk transfer unit — the arm handling pension liability transfers from companies to insurers — grew operating profit 6% to £1.168 billion. Asset Management held steady at £402 million. Retail edged up, posting a 4% gain at £447 million. “Broadly in line with expectations,” Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Matt Britzman said of the results, but noted that weaker capital metrics put pressure on the stock. Legal & General Group
Peer pressure hasn’t let up. On Thursday, rival M&G delivered flat operating profit for 2025, though it pointed to better flows. L&G shares? Reuters notes they’ve barely budged since Simões stepped in at the start of 2024. For comparison, Aviva tacked on around 44%, and the FTSE 100 is up 34% over the same period.
Buybacks might not settle the debate over capital or market risk. L&G maintains it’s at ease with solvency for now, projecting its ratio will land somewhere within a 160%-190% operating band eventually. But the company is tracking several pressure points: repercussions from the Iran conflict, elevated oil prices, wider credit spreads, and strains in U.S. private credit.
Thursday’s rebound wasn’t enough to get the stock close to its 279.5 pence high for the year. L&G logged £11.8 billion in global pension risk transfer deals in 2025—£10.4 billion of that coming from the UK. Management claims Asset Management has reached an inflection point. Investors, though, seem to want clearer signs that fatter payouts won’t come at the expense of a stable balance sheet.
