Legal & General Group PLC (LSE:LGEN) is scheduled to provide a trading update on its institutional retirement business, which accounts for more than 50% of the group’s divisional earnings and remittances, on December 4.
Ahead of the update, UBS has forecasted full-year 2024 pension risk transfer (PRT) volumes to reach £10.2 billion, with £8.70 billion expected in the second half.
This includes £7 billion from UK PRT and £1.5 billion from International PRT.
Legal & General is the UK's longest-serving active bulk annuity provider. As of December 31, 2023, its UK retirement annuity book was estimated at £86.1 billion.
In 2023, L&G wrote over £12 billion of UK bulk annuity business, including significant transactions including a £4.8 billion buy-in with the Boots Pension Scheme and a £2.7 billion buy-in with the British Steel Pension Scheme.
But L&G is facing ever stiffer competition as the PRT market starts to heat up.
Rothesay Life recently closed the largest ever PRT deal with NatWest Group PLC (LSE:NWG) via an £11 billion pension de-risking transaction.
Phoenix Group subsidiary Standard Life and Aviva are also major players in the PRT market.
Corporations engage in PRTs with insurance firms to reduce the risk of accruing a pension deficit which will need to be funded from their cash flows.