London, May 14, 2026, 09:09 BST
Legal & General shares rose almost 5% on Thursday after Chief Executive António Simões was quoted as saying the FTSE 100 insurer and asset manager was not considering a sale or break-up. The move put the stock on course for its biggest one-day rise since December 2024, while L&G still remained slightly lower for the year.
The timing matters. L&G has been trying to persuade investors that Simões’ stand-alone plan can lift returns after a weak share-price run and a bruising reaction to its March results. The Financial Times reported that North American private capital groups, including Apollo and Brookfield, had been looking at options around the company; Simões told the FT there were “no discussions” and that he was “100 per cent focused” on his strategy. Financial Times
That strategy is now the story. Simões, who became CEO in 2024, has pledged to simplify the 190-year-old group and push more capital into asset management and retail, while keeping the company’s large retirement business at the centre. L&G’s shares had lagged Aviva and the FTSE 100 since he took over, Reuters reported in March.
The company’s last full-year numbers gave both sides of the argument. L&G said core operating profit rose 6% to 1.62 billion pounds in 2025 and core operating earnings per share rose 9%, but its pro-forma Solvency II ratio, a measure of capital strength for insurers, fell to 210% from 232%. The group also launched a 1.2 billion pound buyback, its largest.
Pension risk transfer remains a key engine. These are deals where company pension schemes hand long-term payment obligations to an insurer. L&G wrote 11.8 billion pounds of global pension risk transfer business in 2025, including 10.4 billion pounds in the UK, and reported 1.2 trillion pounds of assets under management.
Simões is also trying to make L&G look less like a slow-moving domestic insurer and more like an international asset manager. In April he told Reuters the company aimed to double assets under management in Asia to about $500 billion, with Asia expected to help push international assets above 50% of the portfolio by 2028.
The competitive pressure is real. Asset managers have been chasing private markets, including private credit and infrastructure, because fees there are often higher than in listed stocks and bonds. Schroders and Apollo agreed in February to build wealth and retirement products together, while Reuters noted L&G had already entered a private-credit tie-up with Blackstone.
There are risks to the rebound. If credit markets turn, gilt yields swing again, or regulators make reinsurance deals more expensive, L&G’s capital plan could face a harder test. The Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority set out proposals in April to raise capital requirements on funded reinsurance, a structure where life insurers pass risk to offshore reinsurers; large UK life insurers include L&G, Aviva and Standard Life.
For now, the market has treated Simões’ denial as a useful line in the sand, not proof that the debate is over. L&G says its aim is a “growing, simpler, better-connected” business focused on institutional retirement, asset management and retail. Investors will judge that plan less by takeover talk than by capital strength, fee growth and whether the buyback can be funded without narrowing the group’s room for error. Legal General Group
