Legal & General Group PLC (LSE:LGEN) announced a 5% dividend hike and a £500 million share buyback, though profits for last year were slightly below expectations.
The size of the life insurer's buyback was larger than many analysts' predictions, with a figure below £400 million the average amount forecast.
But CEO António Simões said the FTSE 100 group was seeing "positive commercial momentum" and simplifying the portfolio through the sale of Cala Homes and US Protection arms had freed up some capital.
The dividend was lifted to 21.36p per share and the buyback for 2025 comes as part of a plan to return more than £5 billion or circa 40% of the group's market cap within three years.
Operating profits from the core businesses rose 6% to £1.6 billion and total operating profit came in at £1.71 billion, a tad below the consensus forecast of £1.75 billion.
Of the core remaining businesses, Institutional Retirement increased profit 7% to £1.1 billion, Asset Management profits fell 10% to £401 million and Retail profit increased 12% to £504 million.
For the outlook, L&G said the Institutional Retirement business is expected to have "strong volumes" and is enjoying a "busy" pipeline of UK pension transfers, completing £1.2 billion of transactions so far, with £17 billion of new deals lined up and visibility on a further £27 billion.