London, May 9, 2026, 22:04 BST
Legal & General Group Plc shares ended Friday nearly flat, keeping the UK insurer’s 8.67% dividend yield and £1.2 billion buyback in focus before a late-May shareholder vote. The stock was quoted at 251.40 pence to sell and 251.45 pence to buy after the London close, with a 15.67p final dividend listed for payment on June 4.
The timing matters because UK equities weakened into the weekend. The FTSE 100 closed 0.4% lower at 10,233.07 and logged a third straight weekly fall as investors weighed fresh Gulf clashes, oil above $100 a barrel and local election losses for Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
For L&G, the live issue is whether cash returns can steady demand while the broader market turns choppy. The company’s buyback page showed 28.7 million shares bought in the week to May 1 at an average £2.5143, taking purchases under the programme to 83.6 million shares and £210.97 million of consideration.
Shareholders get their next formal look at the plan on May 21, when L&G holds its annual general meeting in London. A separate general meeting will follow on a proposed reduction in capital, a legal share-capital step rather than an operating update.
The backdrop is stronger earnings but thinner capital headroom. In March, L&G reported core operating profit of £1.623 billion, up 6%, global pension risk transfer business of £11.8 billion and asset management assets of £1.2 trillion; its Solvency II coverage ratio, a measure of capital held against regulatory requirements, was 203% at year-end and 210% pro forma after the Meiji Yasuda transaction and related buyback, down from 232% in 2024.
That fall in the capital ratio explains some of the caution around the shares. KBW analyst William Hawkins called the solvency result a “big miss,” while Chief Financial Officer Andrew Kail said the ratio remained “comfortable,” the Financial Times reported after the March results. Financial Times
Management has tried to show the story is not just financial engineering. On May 5, L&G named Rob Groves as chief investment officer of its Institutional Retirement business; pension risk transfer, or PRT, is where insurers take on pension liabilities from companies that want those obligations off their balance sheets. Gareth Mee, CEO of Institutional Retirement, said the appointment “strengthens our ability to grow the business.” Legal General Group
The asset-management side also brought in fresh work this week. L&G said it was appointed to manage more than £300 million for Queen’s University Belfast across general reserves, endowment assets and its open defined benefit pension plan; Mark Johnson, L&G’s head of UK institutional and wholesale asset management, said the university had “entrusted” the firm to invest for its long-term financial security. Legal General Group
The longer growth bet is overseas. Chief Executive Antonio Simoes told Reuters in April that L&G aims to double assets under management sourced from Asia to about $500 billion, calling the region the group’s fastest-growing international market and saying, “We’re very bullish on Asia right now.” Reuters
But the risks are not small. The Bank of England’s regulatory arm has proposed tougher capital treatment for funded reinsurance — deals where life insurers pass risk to offshore reinsurers — lifting required capital to about 10% from 2% to 4%; Reuters named Aviva, L&G and Standard Life among large UK life insurers in the sector. If adopted, the change could alter the economics of some pension work just as competition for large retirement deals stays hot.
For now, the market is treating Legal & General as an income-and-execution story, not a clean rally. The share price held up on a weak Friday; the harder test is whether the buyback pace, June dividend and May votes keep the capital question from moving back to the front.
