Finance
Pandemic pushes insurer Legal & General profit down 3%
LONDON (Reuters) – British insurer Legal & General posted a 3% dip in 2020 operating profit to 2.2 billion pounds ($3.05 billion) on Wednesday, hit by a slowdown in housebuilding and demand for life insurance products due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The life insurer and asset manager invests directly in assets such as real estate and infrastructure as well as in more liquid markets.
L&G Capital, which includes housebuilder CALA Homes, saw a 24% drop in operating profit, hurt by lower levels of housebuilding during pandemic-induced UK lockdowns.
Individual annuity and lifetime mortgage sales volumes in Britain also fell, L&G said. In the United States, L&G suffered from increased claims and upped reserves by 110 million pounds for further potential COVID-19 related claims in 2021.
But the insurer’s fund management arm, one of the biggest investors in the UK stock market, saw assets under management rise 7% to 1.3 trillion pounds, helped by 20 billion pounds in net inflows.
“Legal & General delivered a robust and resilient performance for all stakeholders, providing stability to our people, customers and shareholders,” Chief Executive Nigel Wilson said in a statement.
L&G said it would pay a full-year dividend of 17.57 pence per share, unchanged from a year earlier.
(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn; editing by Simon Jessop)
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