Annual report summary 2024
Our vision for a growing, simpler and better-connected L&G.
Introduction
2024 was a year of renewal and further transformation for L&G. Under the leadership of our new Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), António Simões, we set out an ambitious vision and a clear set of strategic objectives, while continuing to support the customers and clients who trust us with their financial futures.
For many years, we have been driven by a belief in the potential of capital to do good and at the end of 2024 we shared our purpose: 'Investing for the long term. Our futures depend on it'. The purpose statement, combined with our new strategy and a refreshed set of behaviours, sets out how we intend to continue creating value for our shareholders and the economies in which we operate.
Looking back at 2024
As 2024 began, we welcomed António Simões as our new Group CEO. After taking a deep dive into our business and listening to our investors, customers, clients, partners, and employees during the first half of the year, in June he outlined his vision for a growing, simpler, and better-connected L&G. It was a year of change, and you can view some of our 2024 highlights below.
LGIM (which became part of our new Asset Management business in June) completed a £25 million transaction with The National Trust...
LGIM (which became part of our new Asset Management business in June) published its Active Ownership annual report, detailing its Investment...
Since the pandemic, the UK’s faced long-term sickness and strained health resources. We partnered with UCL Institute of Health to launch...
June marked several milestones for our business and its wider communities...
We started August by announcing our half year results, showing strong business performance with core operating profit ahead of last year and...
October saw a pivotal step in our growth with a strategic investment in Taurus Investment Holdings, accelerating our progress in US real estate...
Our momentum kept us rushing towards the end of the year with no signs of slowing down...
As the year draws to a close, we are celebrating not one, but two records...
Read more about our financials in our Annual report.
Read more in our Climate and nature report and Social impact report.
1From a 2019 base year.
2To account for the impact of the pandemic, our 2021 base year includes estimated emissions data from our Private Markets commercial portfolio based on 2019 data. All other base year emissions are from 2021.
3From 2024, we have measured and will report our employee engagement index (EEI) rather than employee satisfaction (‘eSat’). EEI is a composite of measures including, but beyond, only satisfaction. For reference, our eSat for 2024 was 80%, up one point vs 2023.
CEO spotlight
Following the publication of our 2024 Full Year Results our Group CEO, António Simões, shares his perspective on our performance and progress.
Our new strategic priorities
Our new strategy set out ambitions for Sustainable Growth, Sharper Focus and Enhanced Returns, and a vision of becoming a growing, simpler, better-connected L&G.
Sustainable Growth
We want to sustainably grow our three businesses, seizing the opportunities in Institutional Retirement and investing to grow Asset Management and Retail. Each of our three businesses has reliable earnings and the potential for significant growth upside.
Sharper Focus
We have sharpened our focus on the core businesses of L&G. We are bringing together our capabilities across public and private markets to create a single global Asset Management business. Guided by our new capital allocation framework, we now have a clear set of priorities, and we are focusing on those businesses with the strongest strategic fit and financial performance. Therefore, we have created a new Corporate Investments unit (CIU) to manage our non-strategic assets to maximise the value to shareholders.
Enhanced Returns
We are committing to delivering enhanced shareholder returns - setting out new financial targets and changing our approach to shareholder distributions. Our new strategy seeks to deliver strong returns over time, through making the most of our synergies, investing in the business for long-term growth and returning capital to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks.
Business model
Our strategy harnesses the strengths of our three businesses, and we have made strong progress on how they connect and collaborate to achieve our vision.
Institutional Retirement
In Institutional Retirement, 2024 was a strong year with more than £10 billion of PRT deals written globally, with record performance in the US and Canada. Looking ahead, there is a £1 trillion global market opportunity over the next decade, and as the market’s leading global player, we have an incredibly strong pipeline.
Read a Q&A with our Institutional Retirement CEO Andrew Kail.
Asset Management
In Asset Management, 2024 was a year of transformation as we combined our former Capital and Investment Management businesses into a single Asset Management business, with the newly appointed CEO, Eric Adler to lead the growth engine of our strategy.
Read a Q&A with our Asset Management CEO Eric Adler.
Retail
In Retail, we also announced a new leader, with Laura Mason bringing her experience from across L&G to the role of Retail CEO. We demonstrated strong progress in Workplace flows and launched our app to help customers better connect with their long-term savings. We achieved record-breaking retail annuity sales of £2 billion and our protection businesses performed strongly both in the UK and US.
Read a Q&A with our Retail CEO Laura Mason.
Customer journey
Read more about how our three business support our customers at every stage of their lives.