Legal & General hires John Cummins as MD of Urban Regeneration and Clean Energy

In this newly created senior role that reflects the business’ growth ambitions for these two strategic sectors, John will oversee all LGC’s direct investments in urban regeneration and clean energy as they continue to expand, evolve and mature, reporting directly to Kerrigan Procter, the CEO of LGC. The head of Clean Energy, John Bromley, and head of Urban Regeneration, Rachel Dickie, will report into John, while continuing to bolster their respective teams.

John was previously Group Treasurer of RBS from 2007 to the end of 2016, where his main responsibilities included liquidity, balance sheet management, capital planning, long and short term funding, as well as interest rate and foreign exchange rate risk. During this period he oversaw a reduction in all wholesale funding from £450bn to £70bn and was heavily involved in restructuring RBS’ group balance sheet as well as building its liquidity portfolios to around £150bn. In addition he ran various group wide programmes including preparations for ring fencing, the Scottish referendum, BREXIT and Libor remediation. Prior to joining RBS he was Group Treasurer at Standard Life, where he spent over ten years. He has a MA from Oxford University and MBA from Bradford University. 

Kerrigan Procter, CEO of Legal & General Capital, commented: “John brings with him a vast amount of experience and a passion to apply this to further Legal & General’s plans for socially useful and economically useful investment in urban regeneration and clean energy. Legal & General is unique in being able to bring together long-term capital and capability in commercial property, residential property and infrastructure investment.

“We feel privileged to work with partners in places such as Cardiff, Bracknell, Leeds, Salford and Newcastle to bring about meaningful change to cities and towns in the UK. But we can do much more. John will lead our effort to bring together the full range of capabilities Legal & General can offer with more partners in more towns and cities across the UK.”

Urban regeneration and clean energy are two of LGC’s main areas of investment. Delivering significant shareholder returns through leveraging L&G’s existing businesses, network of relationships and expertise, while also unlocking attractive debt-like investments for our annuity business and LGIM’s client base, we believe that our investments in these areas can also address social and economic issues of the future:

• The Urban Regeneration business is maturing fast, with profits being realised on disposals and valuations increasing as projects are developed and occupied. With three quarters of the UK’s fast expanding population now living in cities, there is increasing strain on these areas and demand for fit for purpose housing, work space and amenities. Legal & General is committed to working with local councils, partners and stakeholders to unlock city regeneration and secure the viability of socially and economically important UK schemes.  As such it is involved in some of the UK’s largest strategically important regeneration schemes, that are fast transforming and reshaping Britain’s landscape, including schemes in Cardiff, Bracknell, Salford, Newcastle, Plymouth and Leeds, bringing jobs and housing back into the centre of cities and better utilising our existing infrastructure. 
• In the Clean Energy sector, LGC’s sector partner, NTR, has now completed the construction of the majority of sites for its €246m UK onshore wind fund, which is in the final stages of its investment period, and it is in advanced stages of the development of its second fund. In addition we aim to create long-term social and economic value by investing in modern and digital energy technologies of the future, such as Upside Energy, Tokamak Energy and Oxford Photovoltaics, that can be deployed locally and at scale, and will support UK jobs, skills and expertise.