London, April 22, 2026, 15:16 BST
Legal & General Group Plc is moving forward with its record capital-return plan. The FTSE 100 insurer reported it has repurchased 6.66 million more shares for cancellation, according to new regulatory filings. Separately, there was a share-award transaction involving Chief Financial Officer Andrew Kail.
Investors are watching closely to see if L&G follows through on its pledged £1.2 billion buyback without jeopardizing funds earmarked for its retirement and asset-management arms. According to the company, shares were snapped up via Barclays Capital Securities from April 13 to April 17 at an average price of £2.6542, adding up to £17.68 million.
With settlement and cancellation wrapped up, L&G’s total ordinary shares outstanding drops to 5,662,331,182, according to the April 20 RNS. The company holds zero shares in treasury—meaning that’s the full count of voting rights as well.
Legal & General Group’s buyback tracker puts total repurchases at 35.56 million shares, costing £88.97 million since the program kicked off. That’s barely touched the £1.2 billion target, though shareholders now have a clearer look at weekly progress—especially after March results left the market divided.
Late Tuesday, L&G reported that Kail exercised 426,166 nil-cost options from the 2021 Performance Share Plan—these awards come with no exercise price. Out of those, he sold 204,858 shares at £2.707991 apiece, pulling in £554,753.62 to cover tax and dealing charges. He held onto 221,308 shares.
L&G shares were trading at 271.7 pence as of 13:36 BST on Wednesday, sitting close to the upper boundary of the company’s recent buyback levels. According to an April 20 filing, L&G shelled out up to 273.30 pence a share on April 17 across certain venues.
The buyback news landed alongside 2025 results last month. L&G posted a 6% rise in core operating profit to £1.62 billion, with core operating EPS up 9%. Dividend: 21.79 pence. The group flagged a pro forma Solvency II coverage ratio of 210%—that’s the European and UK insurance metric for capital strength. “Meaningful progress in reshaping L&G,” was how Chief Executive António Simões summed it up. Legal & General Group
Trading was choppy. On March 11, Reuters flagged L&G shares slipping after the firm missed some analyst forecasts on earnings and reported a weaker solvency ratio, despite rolling out its buyback. The piece also pointed out that L&G, under Simões since the start of 2024, has trailed both Aviva and the FTSE 100, putting extra weight on delivering those cash returns.
Matt Britzman, a senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, described L&G’s latest results as having “a few moving parts”—some areas outperformed, others fell short. Pension risk transfers are still central for L&G, he noted, since these transactions send fresh assets to the group’s investment side. Hargreaves Lansdown
Simões is looking to ramp up L&G’s presence beyond the UK. Speaking to Reuters last week, he said the group is aiming to boost Asian assets under management to roughly $500 billion—doubling the current figure. L&G, he added, was “very bullish on Asia right now,” describing the region as its fastest-growing international market. Reuters
Capital returns alone might not end the argument. Last month, the Financial Times flagged KBW analyst William Hawkins describing L&G’s solvency showing as a “big miss.” Private-capital-backed rivals are crowding into the pension risk transfer market, raising the stakes. And there’s always the possibility that higher yields, choppy markets, or softer capital generation could sap the punch from the buyback headline figure. Ft
