Having a good tidy up can pay dividends

By, sell or hold: today’s best share tips
 
 

LEGAL & GENERAL
Expected dividend yield this year 5%

Insurance companies have tended to veer from years of peaceful somnolence to months of frantic catastrophe, often necessitating the replacement of the chief executive and a rescue rights issue. Few have merited the phrase, as one analyst described Legal & General, “ever restless”.

L&G is moving its operating model away from having large amounts of capital locked up in the business to a “capital-lite” one, whereby, as I have suggested before, others take much of the risk on the assets it has.

The 2014 pension changes in the budget have meant a shift away from individual annuities towards bulk ones, whereby the company takes on the defined-benefit pension liabilities of companies.

Bulk annuity sales tend to