Legal & General is an agreeably transparent business, so investors at least know what they are getting. It piles up the cash and pays it out in dividends, offering a yield among the more attractive in the financials sector.
That cashflow is also highly predictable, allowing L&G to give the market a clear indication of how much there will be in the bank in future. In 2014 net cash generation rose by 10 per cent to £1.1 billion; read the outlook statement, and analysts are primed for another 8 per cent rise in 2015.
While different parts of the business are moving in different directions — the American business was hit by higher-than-expected mortality rates — that cash generation was still driven by increases at