Legal & General today proved there is life after individual annuities as it enjoyed a record breaking start to 2014.
Shares in the company tumbled in March when the Chancellor unveiled reforms to the pensions industry, designed to give savers more freedom on how to spend their pension pot which led to that insurers would lose out on sales of annuities — one of their most lucrative sources of revenue.
But even though sales of these products fell 40% during the first quarter at L&G, the company managed to offset this by selling bulk annuities to company pension schemes, the business said today.
Legal & General shares today rose 3% to 219.3p.
It also generated net cash of £301 million in the period and benefited from billions of pounds of client cash streaming into its fund management arm, which now manages £463 billion.
