Legal & General completes bulk annuity deal

RNS Number : 9455J

Legal & General Group Plc

23 December 2015

 

LEGAL & GENERAL COMPLETES UK'S LARGEST MEDICALLY UNDERWRITTEN BULK ANNUITY DEAL

Legal & General is pleased to announce that it has completed the UK's largest medically underwritten bulk annuity deal with a UK defined benefit pension scheme. The deal is a buy-in, for around £230m in pension liabilities, covering specific scheme members.

Legal & General's Pension Risk Transfer team has written over £1.1 billion of business during Q4 2015*. Pension scheme activity remained brisk over the quarter with transactions covering 13 schemes and more than 18,000 members.

Legal & General Retirement has internationalised its business in 2015, with entry into the US and European pension risk transfer markets. In October Legal & General announced its first pension risk transfer deal with the US subsidiary of Royal Philips for approximately $450 million, and in December it completed a €200 million reinsurance deal with ASR Nederland NV, a Dutch Insurer.

Kerrigan Procter, Managing Director of Legal & General Retirement, added: "The deal signs-off an excellent year for the business, with our entry into the US and Dutch pension risk transfer markets, and our first medically underwritten bulk annuity deal completed. We enter 2016 with a strong international pipeline. I'm confident we'll build on the success of 2015 next year. "

Cheryl Agius, Strategic Pension Risk Transfer Director at Legal & General, said: "We are delighted to be working together on pension risk transfer in this innovative way with our client and with their advisor.  This deal is an exciting fusion of our enhanced annuity underwriting capability with our bulk annuity experience, and illustrates how we can offer further flexibility to our clients as they take steps to de-risk their defined benefit pension schemes."

Globally as at 30 September 2015, Legal & General manages an annuity book of over £43 billion, and provides annuity benefits to over a million customers.

- ENDS -

For further information, please contact:

Investors:

Laura Doyle                       Head of Investor Relations                                                                                       020 3124 2088

Media:

Richard King                     Head of Group Corporate Communications                                                        020 3124 2095

Notes to editors:

* Legal & General wrote £1.1bn of pension risk transfer business in Q4 of 2015. The number includes the approx. £230 million medically underwritten scheme announced today, the Royal Philips scheme of approx. $450 million, and the €200 million ASR Nederland NV reinsurance announcement.

Legal & General Group Plc

Established in 1836, Legal & General is a leading provider of insurance, savings and investment management products in the UK. The Group has a market capitalisation of £15.6bn (as at 21^st December 2015) and is responsible for investing £728bn worldwide (as at 30^th September 2015) on behalf of investors, policyholders and shareholders. We have over seven million customers in the UK for life assurance, pensions, investments and general insurance plans and over one million customers in the US who rely on us for life assurance. In 2014, Legal & General's operating profit (on the IFRS basis) was £1,275m and earnings per share were 16.70p for the period, an increase of 10% for both respectively.

For more information on Legal & General, please see http://www.legalandgeneralgroup.com/

Legal & General Retirement

Legal & General Retirement participates in the insurance solution pension de-risking market for nearly 30 years and was voted Risk Reduction Provider of the Year at the 2014 and 2013 UK Pensions Awards and Risk Management Provider of the Year at the Pensions Age Awards 2014. Legal & General was also voted Insurer of the Year at the 2014 Insurance Risk Awards. Legal & General provides annuities to pensioners and has completed a number of landmark transactions. These include the $900m deal with Philips in the US in partnership with the Prudential Insurance company of America in 2015, the £3bn bulk annuity arrangement with the ICI Pension Fund, the largest bulk annuity policy arranged by a pension scheme in the UK to date, secured in March 2014 and the £3.2bn longevity insurance transaction with the BAE Systems 2000 Pension Plan in February 2013. Legal & General manages £43.4bn of annuity assets as at 30 June 2015.

Legal & General offers a range of de-risking solutions, which includes buyout, buy-in, longevity insurance and liability-driven investment (LDI), to pension schemes of all sizes. Legal & General is also able to tailor a combination of LDI and longevity insurance to provide "DIY buy-in" solutions. Legal & General has expertise in investment management, all aspects of defined benefit provision as well as an in-depth understanding of mortality trends and longevity risk. The excellent services we are able to provide also include payroll, administration and communications services.

Forward-looking statements

This announcement may contain certain forward-looking statements relating to Legal & General, its plans and its current goals and expectations relating to future financial condition, performance and results. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve uncertainty because they relate to future events and circumstances which are beyond Legal & General's control, including, among others, UK domestic and global economic and business conditions, market related risks such as fluctuations in interest rates and exchange rates, the policies and actions of regulatory and Governmental authorities, the impact of competition, the timing impact of these events and other uncertainties of future acquisition or combinations within relevant industries. As a result, Legal & General's actual future condition, performance and results may differ materially from the plans, goals and expectations set out in these forward-looking statements and persons reading this announcement should not place reliance on forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made only as at the date on which such statements are made and Legal & General Group Plc does not undertake to update forward-looking statements contained in this announcement or any other forward-looking statement it may make.

 

END

 

 

MSCPKBDQABDDDBB