Legal & General Group plc, commonly known as Legal & General, is a British multinational

financial services Financial services are the Service (economics), economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, acco ...

and

asset management Asset management is a systematic approach to the governance and realization of value from the things that a group or entity is responsible for, over their whole life cycles. It may apply both to tangible assets (physical objects such as buildings ...

company headquartered in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, England. Its products and services include

investment management Investment management is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institut ...

, lifetime mortgages (a form of

equity release Equity release is a means of retaining use of a house or other asset which has capital value, while also obtaining a lump sum or a steady stream of income, using the value of the asset. Pricing of no negative equity guarantee The UK Prudent ...

pensions A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...

, annuities, and

life assurance Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death ...

. As of January 2020, it no longer provides general insurance following the sale of Legal & General Insurance to Allianz. It has operations in the United Kingdom and United States, with investment management businesses in the

Gulf A gulf is a large inlet from the ocean into the landmass, typically with a narrower opening than a bay, but that is not observable in all geographic areas so named. The term gulf was traditionally used for large highly-indented navigable bodie ...

, Europe and Asia. Legal & General is listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

and is a constituent of the

FTSE 100 Index The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie" , is a share index of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with (in principle) the highest market ...

. Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), the asset management arm of L&G, is the 10th largest investment management firm in the world by AUM. It is also the second largest institutional investment management firm in Europe (after

BlackRock BlackRock, Inc. is an American Multinational corporation, multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a Enterprise risk management, risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackR ...

History

1836 to 2000

Legal & General was formed by Sergeant John Adams and five other lawyers in June 1836 in a Chancery Lane coffee shop. Originally called the ''New Law Life Assurance Society'', the society was restricted to those in the legal profession. The name was changed to ''Legal & General Life Assurance Society'' to reflect that policies were available to the general public but with share ownership restricted to those in the legal profession. The group expanded in the UK and soon began to acquire overseas life assurance companies, purchasing a pensions business from the Metropolitan Life Assurance Company of New York in the 1930s. The society became a wholly owned division of ''Legal & General Group plc'' in the 1970s. Legal & General Group, formed Legal & General America as a holding company in 1981, and bought Government Employees Life Insurance Company (GELICO) and its NY affiliate. The GELICO name changed to Banner in 1983. William Penn was purchased by Legal & General Group Plc as a wholly owned subsidiary of Banner Life Insurance Company in 1989. It bought the Dutch branch of ''Unlike Assurance Group'' and also set up business in France during the 1980s. Following the trend in the United Kingdom at the time of financial institutions entering the estate agency sector, Legal & General purchased Whitegates Estate Agency from Provident Financial Group plc for £19 million in December 1989. In the 1940s the main office of Legal & General was moved from Temple Bar House in the City of London to a remodelled former girls' school in leafy Kingswood,

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, save for some top management functions which remained in London. The girls' school (St. Monica's), which formed the basis for the site, was attended by the novelist

Vera Brittain Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir ''Testament of Youth'' recounted her experiences during the First ...

, mother of the politician

Shirley Williams Shirley Vivian Teresa Brittain Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, (' Catlin; 27 July 1930 – 12 April 2021) was a British politician and academic. Originally a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP), she served in the Labour cabinet from ...

. The Kingswood site, which included sports fields, a park, a large and luxurious swimming pool, a canteen and a simulacrum of an English

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

, among other facilities, was expanded in the 1950s and again in the 1980s. In 2015, it was announced that the headquarters would close "potentially before 2025". In fact, after a period of uncertainty for the staff at Kingswood, it was announced that the site would shut much earlier, in 2018. The previous Legal & General logo incorporates the image of the Temple Bar (which is still used in the logo of the company's social and athletic committee), and the founding date. The umbrella logo used today was introduced by former Chief Press Officer Gordon Macdonald in June 1984. Between 1991 and 1994, Legal and General sponsored the Regional Weather Forecasts for the

ITV network ITV is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition to BBC Television (established in 1936). ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passin ...

and in 1999, Legal & General announced plans, which never came to fruition, to merge its business with

National Westminster Bank National Westminster Bank, commonly known as NatWest, is a major retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom based in London, England. It was established in 1968 by the merger of National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank. In 2000, it ...

to form the first '

bancassurance Bancassurance is a relationship between a bank and an insurance company that is aimed at offering insurance products or insurance benefits to the bank's customers. In this partnership, bank staff and tellers become the point of sale and point of ...

' company in the UK.

2000 to present

The company sold the ''Legal & General Bank'' and ''Legal & General Mortgage Services'' to

Northern Rock Northern Rock, formerly the Northern Rock Building Society, was a British bank. Based at Regent Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, Northern Rock was originally a building society. It demutualised and became Northern Rock bank in ...

in 2003 and sold its stake in ''Gresham Insurance'', its joint venture with

Barclays Bank Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services. Barclays traces ...

, to Barclays in 2005. In 2008 Legal & General bought

Suffolk Life Suffolk Life, based in Ipswich, Suffolk, is a British pensions administrator. It mainly provides the administration of self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs), and personal pensions for private funds and self-invested funds of third party provider ...

, a provider of Self Invested Pension products, sold Suffolk Life in 2016 and also outsourced its IT development areas to ''TCS'' (

Tata Consultancy Services Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is an Indian multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company with its headquarters in Mumbai. It is a part of the Tata Group and operates in 150 locations across 46 countries. In July ...

). The company formed a joint venture with two Indian public sector banks, Bank of Baroda and Andhra Bank to launch

IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company is a joint venture of India's public sector banks (Bank of Baroda (. The company has paid-up share capital of 663 crore. It was incorporated in November 2009 and is headquartered in Mumbai. It recorded more ...

in India in 2009 and outsourced some IT areas to IBM in October 2010. In 2013 the company bought Lucida Life, a pensions buyout company, for £151 million. In 2014, there was a "shock" announcement that Legal & General was leaving as one of the

Association of British Insurers The Association of British Insurers or ABI is a trade association made up of insurance companies in the United Kingdom. History The ABI began in 1985 after several specialised insurance industry trade associations joined to form one trade associa ...

(ABI)'s around 300 corporate members, due to ABI's "decision to transfer its investment business to the

Investment Management Association The Investment Management Association (IMA), now known as The Investment Association, is a trade association for the United Kingdom, UK investment management industry. History In 2015, the trade body was renamed "The Investment Association", foll ...

." In the same year, the group disposed of its estate agency business, Xperience, which comprised 89 offices and 75 franchisees, trading as CJ Hole, Ellis and Co, Parkers and Whitegates, to Martin & Co for £6 million. In 2014, the company formed Legal & General Reinsurance, a Bermudian-based reinsurance company. Legal & General Re completed its maiden external transaction in the Dutch market in cooperation with ASR in December 2015. In May 2016 Legal & General Assurance in the UK bought the £3 billion UK annuity portfolio of Aegon. In 2019 following earlier speculation, the company agreed the sale of its General Insurance division, Legal & General Insurance, to

Allianz Insurance Allianz ( , ) is a German Multinational corporation, multinational financial services company headquartered in Munich, Germany. Its core businesses are insurance and asset management. The company is one of the world's largest List of largest ins ...

, the latter making a simultaneous purchase of the remaining 51% share of Liverpool Victoria General Insurance (LV=) of which it already owned 49%. The acquisition took effect on 1 January 2020, at which time Legal & General Insurance’s holding company was renamed Fairmead Insurance. The existing policies will be merged into Allianz Insurance's subsidiary LV= under one expanded business. Legal & General's Birmingham office became an LV= site. Also in 2019, the company acquired a 13% investment in the electric vehicle charging point operator, Pod Point.

Operations

The company offers a wide range of products and, in addition to its direct sales service and brokerage agreements with numerous tied agents and

independent financial adviser Independent financial advisers (IFAs) are professionals who offer independent advice on financial matters to their clients and recommend suitable financial products from the ''whole of the market''. The term was developed to reflect a United Kingd ...

s. It also owns

Cala Homes Cala Homes is a British housebuilding company headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland. History Cala Homes (Gaelic Dachaighean Cala) was founded in 1875 as the City of Aberdeen Land Association. It has grown to become one of the UK's largest house ...

. Legal & General supports institutional pensions, has a large investment arm (Legal & General Investment Management) and holds significant investments in socially responsible businesses from green energy to science parks and affordable housing.

Senior management

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Ron Peet (1925–2020), a socially-conscious

actuary An actuary is a business professional who deals with the measurement and management of risk and uncertainty. The name of the corresponding field is actuarial science. These risks can affect both sides of the balance sheet and require asset man ...

, was CEO of Legal & General, having previously headed its Australian operation. Peet helped the campaign for

Thalidomide Thalidomide, sold under the brand names Contergan and Thalomid among others, is a medication used to treat a number of cancers (including multiple myeloma), graft-versus-host disease, and a number of skin conditions including complications of ...

children, Legal & General then owning a large bloc of shares (3.5 million) in Scottish drinks and pharmaceutical company Distillers. Sir David John Prosser (1944–2020), a Welsh businessman, was the CEO from 1991 to 2005 and is credited with overseeing a period of significant growth in the business. He was followed by Tim Breedon, who became CEO in January 2006. After that Sir

Nigel Wilson Nigel Edward Wilson (born January 12, 1970) is a Canadian former Major League Baseball player from Oshawa, Ontario. He played for the Florida Marlins, Cincinnati Reds, and Cleveland Indians. He also spent six highly successful seasons in Nippo ...

(the previous CFO) became Group Chief Executive on 30 June 2012.

Arms

References

External links

Legal & General Group Plc
– official company page {{DEFAULTSORT:Legal and General Financial services companies established in 1836 British companies established in 1836 Insurance companies of the United Kingdom Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange Financial services companies based in the City of London Life insurance companies of the United Kingdom 1836 establishments in England British brands