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By Chris Vellacott
LONDON, June 26 (Reuters) - British insurer Legal & GeneralGroup Plc has moved to boost its retirement businesswith the 151 million pounds ($232.6 million) acquisition of afirm which manages the annuity funds of thousands of pensioners.
L&G said on Wednesday it had agreed to buy Lucida, whichruns 1.4 billion pounds of annuity assets and has 31,000pensions on its books, from a private equity-owned holdingcompany called LCM Holdings.
The insurer said the cash purchase price will be funded fromsurplus capital, but synergies resulting from the merger wouldreduce the net purchase price to around 85 million pounds.
"This is a cracking bolt-on deal in our view," said analystEamonn Flanagan at brokerage Shore Capital, highlighting thesynergies and added scale to L&G's annuities division.
L&G has pursued a strategy of expansion through bolt-onacquisitions under the tenure of Nigel Wilson, who took over aschief executive a year ago. The Lucida deal follows two othercompleted transactions since the start of 2013.
In March it said it would acquire the 75 percent ofinvestment fund supermarket Cofunds it did not already own, andbought a 46.5 percent stake in housebuilder Cala Group fromLloyds Banking Group
L&G shares were trading 1.4 percent higher at 0810GMT,compared with a 0.4 percent rise in the benchmark FTSE 100 index.
