Legal & General FY operating profit beats forecast, up 32 pct

LONDON, March 7 (Reuters) - British insurer Legal & Generalreported an above-forecast 32 percent rise in 2017operating profit of 2.1 billion pounds ($2.92 billion), it saidon Wednesday, helped by reserve releases related to changinglongevity expectations.

Analysts in a company-supplied consensus poll had forecastoperating profit of 1.9 billion pounds. The results included amortality release of 332 million pounds, L&G said in astatement.

Net release from continuing operations - or net cashgenerated - rose 9 percent to 1.35 billion pounds.

Legal & General Investment Management, one of the largestinvestors in the UK stock market, saw assets under managementrise 10 percent to 983 billion pounds.

L&G said it would pay a total dividend of 15.35 pence pershare, up 7 percent and against a forecast 15.31 pence.($1 = 0.7196 pounds)(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn; editing by Simon Jessop)