Britain's L&G to cut about 1,000 jobs

By Tommy Reggiori Wilkes and Iain Withers

LONDON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Legal & General plans to cut staff numbers by about 10%, or about 1,000 jobs, by the middle of 2027, CEO António Simoes told employees on Wednesday as Britain's biggest asset manager seeks to strip out costs and improve performance.

The planned cuts are part of Simoes' strategy to simplify the sprawling 190-year-old financial group, after previously selling its housebuilder Cala and combining its investment units, while promising bigger returns for shareholders.

L&G's shares were last down 0.8%, against a 0.2% dip for the wider FTSE 100 index.

While the stock price is up 13% so far in 2026, the shares have underperformed rivals like Aviva and the wider market in recent years, leading to market speculation the company could become a takeover target. Simoes has said the company is not considering a sale.

"To deliver our strategy successfully, we now need to make sure the way we work reflects the business we are becoming. Across L&G, we need to change how we work today and, through this, become a leaner organisation. By the middle of next year, we expect to reduce the size of our organisation by around 1,000 roles," Simoes said.

He added that L&G had become too complex over the past decade. The company is opening a voluntary job reduction programme, but does not rule out compulsory redundancies. 

An L&G spokesperson said the changes would help the company focus investment on areas where it saw the strongest opportunities for growth, and that it would be consulting unions on the reductions. 

Asset management, one of L&G's main business divisions alongside life insurance and pension-related products, will be excluded from the job cuts after going through a restructuring last year.

Simoes, who became L&G CEO in early 2024, has been battling to boost performance and lift the group's share price.

L&G reported an increase in operating profit in half-year results in August and raised several performance targets, though it flagged a dip in deals for its pensions buyout business despite forecasting a strong pipeline.

(Reporting by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes and Iain Withers in London, Additional reporting by Anushka Chourasia in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore, Kim Coghill and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)