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November 04, 2015 at 08:42 AM
(Bloomberg) — Legal & General Group Plc is in talks with a number of Dutch pension funds as the insurer seeks to expand its bulk corporate annuity business outside the U.K.
Total annuity sales dropped 61 percent in the nine months through September to 1.5 billion pounds ($2.3 billion), London- based L&G said Wednesday. That includes a “quieter” third quarter when the insurer completed 15 bulk deals worth 92 million pounds.
“Plans are progressing to enter the European bulk annuity market in the next few months,” Chief Financial Officer Mark Gregory said on a conference call with journalists. The Netherlands “is another big market for us. We wouldn’t be flagging it today if there wasn’t something beneath the surface going on,” he said.
L&G, the largest manager of U.K. pension assets, is among insurers building their corporate annuities business to offset the fall out from government changes to Britain’s pension system, which no longer forces a retiree to buy an annuity. The company won its first U.S. bulk annuity deal in October with more transactions expected, Gregory said Wednesday.
