London, April 25, 2026, 20:03 BST
- Legal & General shares were marked lower after the FTSE 100 insurer traded ex-dividend for its 2025 final payout.
- The next investor test is a May 21 shareholder vote on a capital reduction that would lift distributable reserves.
- The stock move keeps focus on Legal & General’s dividend, buyback and capital buffer after a mixed market reaction to March results.
Legal & General Group Plc shares ended Friday lower as the stock traded around 252p after going ex-dividend, a technical move that still put the insurer’s capital-return plan back in view. Hargreaves Lansdown showed the shares at 252.60p/252.65p, down 0.61%, with the market closed and the stock marked ex-dividend.
The timing matters. Legal & General’s final dividend for 2025 is 15.67 pence a share, with an ex-dividend date of April 23, a record date of April 24 and payment due on June 4, S&P Capital IQ data carried by MarketScreener showed.
Investors are now looking past the dividend cut-off to a May 21 Annual General Meeting and a separate General Meeting on the same day. Legal & General says the GM will cover a proposed reduction in capital, an accounting step that can increase reserves available for dividends and other shareholder returns.
The company’s notice says it plans to reduce its share premium account by about £1.05 billion and its capital redemption reserve by about £24.6 million. The move would increase retained earnings by £1.08 billion, but would not return cash to shareholders, cut net assets or change the number of shares held, the filing showed.
Legal & General is trying to keep investors focused on cash returns after announcing a £1.2 billion share buyback with its 2025 results. Chief Executive António Simões said in March the group had made “meaningful progress in reshaping L&G” and called it a “sharper, more focused business.” Legal General Group
The results gave both sides of the trade something to point at. Legal & General reported core operating profit of £1.62 billion, up 6%, core operating earnings per share up 9%, and a pro forma Solvency II coverage ratio of 210%. Solvency II is the capital buffer measure insurers use to show how much protection they hold against regulatory requirements.
But capital remains the awkward part of the story. KBW analyst William Hawkins called the solvency result a “big miss,” according to the Financial Times, a reminder that investors may keep testing whether buybacks and dividends can run alongside growth spending and balance-sheet caution. Financial Times
The capital-reduction vote is not risk-free either. Legal & General’s notice says the plan needs shareholder approval, court confirmation and registration by the Registrar of Companies, and that directors could decide not to proceed if court conditions or another event made the step inappropriate.
There was a small service win in the background. Pensions Age reported on April 24 that Aviva, Legal & General and Zurich had received their first Gold accreditations under the STAR programme for transfer performance across pensions, savings and investments. ABI official Rob Yuille said the awards showed an industry push for “faster, more reliable transfer processes.” Pensions Age
That peer context matters because Legal & General’s pitch is not only yield. It is trying to show it can grow in retirement, workplace savings and asset management while competing with large rivals such as Aviva and Zurich on customer service and operational speed.
In retirement, the company remains a major player in pension risk transfer, where insurers take on defined-benefit pension promises from corporate schemes. Legal & General reported £11.8 billion of global pension risk-transfer deals in 2025, including £10.4 billion in the UK.
The near-term question is plainer: whether the stock’s income appeal can outweigh concern over capital strength and execution. The dividend date has passed. The May vote, and then the August interim results, will give investors the next read.
