PRESS: Legal & General CEO denies sale plan as takeover rumours swirl

(Alliance News) - Shares in Legal & General Group PLC rose on Thursday as the Financial Times suggested that potential bidders, including insurers and alternative asset managers, had been "running the rule" over the business.

Chief Executive Antonio Simoes told the FT that he was not considering a break-up or sale and was "100% focused on executing my strategy."

"There's no discussions or anything else going on," he added.

Nonetheless, one current L&G insider told the FT that "it feels like we’re being dressed up for a sale."

Shares in L&G were up 5.0% at 261.00 pence each in London on Thursday, the best performer in the FTSE 100, which was up 0.2%.

The FT noted analysts are questioning whether L&G's dividend is sustainable and if it can survive as a public company, while City advisers told it that potential bidders are eyeing the business.

"It's getting pretty real," one US private capital executive said about groups drawing up plans to bid for L&G. "People are spending real money on this now."

Potential bidders have considered a full takeover of L&G, four people familiar with those discussions told the FT, although any such transaction would be challenging and politically sensitive due to the size of L&G and its large holdings of gilts.

Private capital executives told the FT that there were a host of strategic alternatives open to L&G from selling off blocks of its sprawling insurance portfolio to offloading assets to reinsurers. It could also find a private capital partner to assume some of its pension risk transfer assets.

By Jeremy Cutler, Alliance News reporter

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