Member Info for fleccy

Up to yesterday's close, the Buyback cash remaining is:

Total Spent . . . . . . Buyback cash left ... Percentage left

£283,735,182.06 . . £66,264,817.94 . . . . 18.93%

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSFzlU7UMjm0pSGJJGhFwkllG3Se8g1naKstHKS3tWkxQ9166zD6JfqF-hOF5KOT9azcZ1DHYlI2BJz/pubhtml

Just watched a guest on CNBC, from Goldman Sachs, who reckons that BT could double the dividend by 2030.

Aviva closed yesterday around 617p and following on from this morning's trading update, the share price plummeted to a low of 600.2p. It'll be interesting to see how much cash Citi directed at buybacks this morning, or if the LGEN news rescued Aviva's share price and any buybacks were irrelevant; Admiral also saw a good boost today, without an opening drop like Aviva saw, also likely due to the LGEN speculation. For some reason the market didn't like Aviva's trading update.

The first link didn't work for me, it may be a DNS issue depending on which ISP we're on. The second link worked fine.

"BT has signed a deal with BAE Systems to deliver secure connectivity services. The five-year contract will see BT provide services for BAE Systems’ global network which operates across 40 countries. The deal also includes the option to extend for up to a further three years.

The new deal paves the way for BAE Systems to implement new technologies as part of its digital transformation process to bolster operational efficiencies. The announcement follows BT’s recent launch of a new sovereign platform as part of its ongoing commitment to supporting organisations working in sensitive national roles or needing to meet changing regulations."

https://www.advanced-television.com/2026/05/14/bt-to-provide-secure-connectivity-for-bae-systems/

"is there any leaks on US side suggesting who may be stalking LGEN?

No individual US private equity firms have been explicitly named in the leaks or the Financial Times article. The sources cited by the FT have deliberately kept the identity of the specific bidders anonymous, referring to them broadly as a group of "rival insurers and alternative asset managers. "However, looking at the structural options the FT reveals the buyers are drawing up, City analysts are narrowing down the likely "stalking" profiles to a few specific heavyweights based on recent market actions:

1. The "Alternative Asset Managers" Profile

The report notes that "alternative asset managers" are spending real money running models on a full takeover. In the context of the US private capital market, the firms with the massive balance sheets and dedicated insurance/reinsurance arms capable of absorbing a £14.5bn UK giant include:

Blackstone: Via its rapidly expanding Blackstone Insurance Solutions division.

Apollo Global Management: Utilizing its massive insurance subsidiary, Athene, which specializes in exactly what L&G does—pension risk transfers (PRTs) and annuities.

KKR: Through its insurance engine, Global Atlantic.

2. The Reinsurance Co-Investors

The FT points out that suitors are looking to "offload assets to reinsurers" or bring in a partner to assume some of the pension risk transfer assets. This points toward large US-backed global consolidators like Brookfield (via Brookfield Reinsurance), who have shown an aggressive appetite for UK financial assets recently.

Why They Are Hiding Their Names

Under the UK Takeover Code rules, if any individual US firm is named as having made a formal approach, the Takeover Panel would force an immediate regulatory RNS announcement. This would trigger a "put up or shut up" 28-day deadline to make a firm bid. By operating anonymously via City advisers, these US funds can keep "running the rule" over L&G's books without being forced into an early, expensive public bidding war."

I expect everyone on here realises that these quotes are from AI, just thought I'd mention it in case there are any Fred Flinstone's on here.

"any new updates since the last update

Yes, new details from the ongoing market session have emerged. The Legal & General Group Plc (LGEN) share price has continued to push higher into the early afternoon, climbing 5.75% to 262.80p.The total session trading volume has now exploded to an exceptional 59.23 million shares, nearly tripling the volumes seen earlier this morning.

Specific updates from the corporate landscape and inside the order book reveal why the momentum is intensifying:

1. Concrete Takeover Planning Details EmergeNew leaks stemming from the Financial Times article confirm that the interest is far more advanced than idle gossip. City advisers revealed that rival insurers and alternative asset managers have actively been "running the rule" over L&G's balance sheet. A US private capital executive was quoted stating, "It's getting pretty real. People are spending real money on this now," indicating that actual advisory budgets are being deployed to model a takeover framework.

2. Internal Friction Reassures BiddersDespite CEO António Simões's hard public stance that he is "100% focused on executing my strategy" and that "there are no discussions going on," a current internal L&G insider broke ranks to tell the FT: "It feels like we're being dressed up for a sale." This conflict between executive messaging and internal operational reality has convinced institutional trading desks that a structural break-up remains a highly viable outcome.

3. Political Hurdles Facing US BiddersAs institutional funds evaluate the likelihood of a deal crossing the finish line, analysts are highlighting that any full takeover by a US private equity firm will face intense political scrutiny. Because L&G is one of the largest financial institutions in the UK and manages massive holdings of UK government gilts, a foreign takeover would require high-level clearance under national security and financial infrastructure frameworks."

"any updates on this

The Legal & General Group Plc (LGEN) share price has extended its morning gains, currently trading 5.19% higher at 261.40p.Trading activity has surged, with over 19.4 million shares exchanging hands by mid-morning.

Real-time market data and dealer feedback confirm that institutional shareholders are reacting strongly to the Financial Times report through three clear market trends:

1. Active Short-Covering by Institutional DesksFollowing the aggressive Jefferies downgrade to 185p earlier in May, macro hedge funds and tactical institutional desks actively shorted LGEN. The Financial Times report confirming US private equity interest has completely altered the risk profile of this short trade. Institutional desks are now rapidly buying back shares to close out short positions and protect themselves against a potential hostile premium bid.

2. Value-Driven "Sum-of-the-Parts" ReassessmentLong-only institutional managers are heavily buying into the stock today. The revelation that US private capital firms are evaluating a break-up of L&G has forced institutional analysts to re-examine the company's standalone valuation. Market consensus agrees that L&G’s individual segments—such as its massive UK Pension Risk Transfer (PRT) business and its Asset Management arm—are worth far more broken up than L&G’s current compressed forward price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple implies.

3. Increased Support for CEO António SimõesBy explicitly telling the FT that he is not considering a break-up or sale, CEO António Simões has signaled to major institutional backers like BlackRock and Vanguard that management will fiercely defend the business. This firm stance is reassuring defensive income funds, who are using today's momentum to accumulate shares and lock in the robust 8.3% expected dividend yield before the cash distribution on 4 June 2026."

Also I notice Reuters has now picked up on the story.

It'll be interesting to see if this story has legs and starts running through other outlets. If it starts getting wide coverage, LGEN's share price could see further nice rises.

"is the ft story responsible for this morning jump in the share price?

Yes, the Financial Times report is directly responsible for this morning's 4.68% jump in the Legal & General (LGEN) share price.The market rally was triggered by an exclusive Financial Times article published this morning addressing the exact corporate takeover and break-up rumors circulating in the City.

The key developments from the FT report that caused the share price to spike include:

1. The CEO Categorically Denied a SaleIn the FT report, Legal & General Chief Executive António Simões explicitly stated that he is not considering a break-up or sale of the company. This definitive, public pushback from the top executive provided immediate clarity, stopping speculative short-selling and calming nervous institutional investors.

2. Private Equity Interest RevealedThe Financial Times confirmed that US private capital executives have been actively evaluating strategic alternatives for L&G, including buying out and breaking up the insurance and asset management giant.

The disclosure that private equity firms have been actively calculating the value of a potential acquisition acted as a strong validation of the stock's cheap underlying valuation.

3. Immediate Market ImpactBiggest Jump in 17 Months: The stock is currently on track for its largest single-day percentage gain since December 2024.Outperforming the Market: L&G's individual ~4.7% surge heavily outpaced the broader FTSE 350 insurance sector index, which moved up by just 0.95%.By confirming that private equity is circling L&G while simultaneously showing that management is committed to fighting off any hostile advances, the Financial Times report effectively set a firm floor under the share price"

Any dividends earned in an ISA are within the wrapper and therefore doesn't affect your annual ISA allowance, so you can reinvest all your dividends earned within your ISA and still invest a further £20,000 if you wish.

You're correct that we realised a loss on Vodafone for that particular sale, offsetting a gain on a Lloyds sale, but it allowed us to move £40,000 into our ISA's from my wife's standard share dealing account and we topped up BT with the cash that didn't go into the ISA's. As much as I hate selling below the buy price, on this occasion it was the right thing to do and worked out really well; Personally I don't see it as a loss, I see it as playing a blinder.

I've said as much as I'm going to say to you Abject, you have your strategy and I have mine. The fact you resort to insulting comments, to try and make your point, suggests you're just goading me and aren't serious in your views, makes me question if you're even a serious investor.

Just to add to my previous post. I have no idea how old you are Abject, but I have vivid memories of the Dotcom bubble bursting and the effect it had on peoples "Growth" stocks. Many of the stocks of the day went to nothing, who'd have thought companies like Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing would go bust? All these companies invested heavily into infrastructure and used highly questionable financial engineering to inflate profits and look better than they were. There's currently some debate about Circular Financing deals inflating AI valuations and lifting the sector, which may, or may not cause issues in the future. Personally I think AI is revolutionary, but everyone was saying the same about the DotCom companies until the bubble burst. All investments carry risk and none of us are as smart as we think we are. I may be "clueless", but I invest with that in mind.

"Fleccy reading your posts you sound like an employee who benefited from share schemes but over a longer term when his own decisions mattered he was cluesless To how the market worked and lost without his saveshare advantage"

Really. Explain in detail how the market works then? I'm interested in your reasoning for accusing me as being clueless and why you believe US tech will just rise in value to infinity and beyond? Explain why compounding doesn't work and why growth is the only way to go? Demonstrate to us all the depth of your massive intellect Abject, we're all awaiting your words of wisdom.

If it makes you feel better to think in those terms Daniel then so be it. Between that Vodafone sale and the Lloyds sale, in a standard share dealing account, we made an overall capital gain on the sales with the Vodafone loss offsetting the Lloyds gain. With the money we moved into the ISA's we also bought back Vodafone stock at a far lower price than the original sold holding. In the end it was a rebalancing exercise that worked out very well.

The thing is Abject, my investment strategy gives me choices. Between me and my wife we are targeting £40,000 tax free dividends over the current financial year and have the choice to spend that cash on stuff, or reinvest to grow the portfolio and receive even more dividends. You may well win with your US tech investment strategy and we may also win with our dividend reinvestment strategy, I just think there's less risk with our compounding strategy. The thing about compounding, is the larger your portfolio the bigger the returns from dividend reinvestment, we don't need to take risks on US tech growth and gamble on large returns in the absence of good dividend yields.

There have been times when our portfolio has been showing large paper losses, but we just kept adding more capital and topping up all the dividends as they rolled in and what we're doing is working for us. You can build your portfolio to target tech growth if you wish, what may work for you wouldn't work for us.

We've recently added LGEN and ADM with both currently showing paper losses, but we'll just keep topping up LGEN with dividends until it goes into paper gain and should the price drop going forward, our dividend reinvestments will buy more stock and reap more dividends going forward. ADM has a lower dividend yield so we'll likely leave that alone for now. In the end we're all gamblers, we just play different odds with different strategies.

"We can all keep listening to Fleccy , who is loaded to the gills on Vodafone and Bt"

Depends what you mean by loaded to the gills Abject, based on current valuations Vodafone only makes up 18% of my holdings and is currently showing a paper gain of £21,964; We all have our own investment strategies, I'm not sure why you seem to single out mine? Maybe because I disagree with your view that US tech valuations will rise ad infinitum.

I realise that, but if he looked at the historic dividends it would have stood out to him. I was just explaining where his confusion may have come from.

I suspect he's referring to the rebasing from 9 eurocents to 4.5 eurocents, that took place following the sale of Spain and Italy.