Legal & General flags top-end full-year earnings growth
By Josh White
Date: Thursday 23 Oct 2025
(Sharecast News) - Legal & General said in an update on Thursday that it expects to deliver full-year 2025 core operating earnings per share growth at the higher end of its 6% to 9% target range, alongside operational surplus generation growth of more than 3%, as it reported solid progress across its business lines.
In a trading update released alongside an investor presentation on its retail division, the FTSE 100 group said it had written or is exclusive on £11bn of pension risk transfer (PRT) volumes so far this year, including £10.2bn in the UK.
Its asset management arm had reached £71bn in private markets assets under management, delivering annualised net new revenue of £29m.
Retail had also performed strongly, with over £1.2bn of annuities written and workplace defined contribution (DC) net flows of £5bn so far this year.
Legal & General said it has a "good cadence" of workplace DC scheme wins, with £3bn of new scheme assets due to transition to the group within the next 18 months.
The company added that assets in its corporate investments unit had been reduced to around £500m, from £2bn originally, following 15 disposals since the unit's creation in mid-2024.
Speaking at an "investor deep-dive" focused on the retail business, Legal & General said the division was well placed to benefit from structural shifts in the UK retirement landscape, targeting compound annual operating profit growth of 4% to 6% between 2024 and 2028, and £40bn to £50bn of workplace DC net flows over the same period.
The group said the retail arm, which serves 12.4 million customers across workplace, annuities, lifetime mortgages and protection, stood to benefit as UK workplace DC assets were expected to double to £1.5trn by 2034, while annual retail annuity volumes rise 2.5 times to £20bn.
It added that it was "ideally positioned to seize this opportunity as the UK's leading DC and retirement platform", managing more than £300bn of retail wealth assets and over £200bn of DC assets.
"As our workplace portfolio matures and assets scale, our tailored digital guidance and retirement solutions will generate increased flows to drawdown and annuities at retirement - strengthening our leading position in open market annuity sales," the company said, adding that investment in new technologies will continue to drive operational efficiency.
Legal & General said it expected growth in retail DC and annuity assets to contribute more than 40% of cumulative asset management revenue targets, with the proportion of retail profit from fee-based earnings set to rise to 40% by 2034 from less than 15% this year.
It also predicted that workplace DC operating margin would double over the period.
The company said retail was expected to become the primary growth driver of its UK annuity portfolio over the next decade, with long-term portfolio growth of 5% to 6% annually as PRT volumes stabilised.
Legal & General said it currently manages £1.1trn in total assets, with a market capitalisation of around £13.8bn as of 22 October.
At 0908 BST, shares in Legal & General were down 0.25% at 241.6p.
Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.
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