LONDON, March 24, 2026, 16:15 GMT
- Legal & General shares were last shown at 237.26 pence at 1232 GMT on Tuesday, above Monday’s 236.7 pence close. 1
- L&G said on Monday it had bought 7.2 million shares between March 16 and March 20 for cancellation under its buyback programme. 2
- Investors are still weighing the March 11 earnings miss and lower solvency ratio despite a record £1.2 billion repurchase plan. 3
Legal & General shares edged higher on Tuesday, with the company’s website showing the stock at 237.26 pence at 1232 GMT, as investors digested a new partnership with Manulife Wealth & Asset Management and fresh buyback purchases. Monday’s close was 236.7 pence, according to Hargreaves Lansdown data. 1
The move matters because L&G is still trying to steady sentiment after the stock fell 6% on March 11, when annual results missed analyst expectations on key earnings measures even as the group unveiled its biggest ever £1.2 billion buyback. The company said that programme, together with dividend growth, would lift planned shareholder returns to £2.4 billion over the next year. 3
Investors zeroed in on the Solvency II coverage ratio — a regulatory measure of capital strength — which dropped to 210% from 232% a year earlier and also missed forecasts. Chief Executive Antonio Simoes told Reuters he was “very comfortable” with that level, but Tuesday’s smaller move suggests the market still wants proof that cash returns and restructuring can outweigh the weaker capital signal. 3
Tuesday’s corporate news was more expansion than repair. L&G and Manulife WAM said they had struck a long-term partnership spanning distribution, investment management and product development across Europe, Asia, the United States, Canada and Bermuda. 4
Eric Adler, CEO of L&G Asset Management, said the tie-up would “expand our global distribution reach” and widen access to L&G’s public- and private-markets offerings. The company said it managed about £1.2 trillion of assets at the end of 2025, with roughly 43% of that held internationally. 4
A filing released late on Monday added some hard cash to the story. L&G said it had purchased 7.2 million ordinary shares between March 16 and March 20 for cancellation, part of the buyback announced with the full-year results. 2
Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, called the March 11 numbers a “mixed bag” and said the initial selloff looked “a little harsh.” He wrote that management’s push to simplify the business and rebuild asset-management profitability still left room for a more constructive case on the shares. 5
The sector backdrop is uneven. Aviva reported a 25% jump in annual profit earlier this month and resumed a £350 million buyback, while Standard Life shares fell on March 16 as investors worried about weaker book value and slower bulk annuity demand. Bulk annuities, or pension-risk transfers, are deals in which insurers take on corporate pension liabilities. 6
Standard Life finance chief Nicolaos Nicandrou told Reuters the market could still deliver “40 to 60 billion pounds” of pension-risk transfers a year, even after a slow 2025. That matters because L&G has said it wants to extend its leadership in defined benefit pension-risk transfer while also expanding its retail and asset-management arms. 7
Still, any rebound could be brittle. Reuters reported the FTSE 100 was down 0.1% on Tuesday as Middle East tensions pushed oil back above $100 a barrel and traders priced in further Bank of England rate hikes, a backdrop that can hit insurers and other rate-sensitive financial stocks hard. 8
Even after Tuesday’s rise, L&G remained well below its 279.5 pence year high, according to Hargreaves Lansdown data. Investors are left to judge whether the buyback and new partnerships mark the start of a rerating, or only a pause after last week’s stumble. 9
