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Legal & General Investment Management
Legal & General Investment Management evolved from the 1970 merger that created the broader Legal & General Group, emerging as the group's core...
Legal & General Investment Management
Legal & General Investment Management evolved from the 1970 merger that created the broader Legal & General Group, emerging as the group's core asset-gathering and management division. By the time Michelle Scrimgeour was appointed CEO in 2019, LGIM was already the UK's largest manager of defined-benefit pension assets, with a passive book so deep it often ranks among the top five holders on the FTSE 100 shareholder register. That index dominance provides the stability the firm uses to fund expansion into active and alternative strategies. The firm's deployment spans fixed income, index equities, multi-asset solutions, and a real assets platform that has become one of the most active direct investors in UK urban regeneration. LGIM's real estate arm is behind major mixed-use developments in cities such as Cardiff and Salford, while its infrastructure debt team has financed offshore wind transmission and rolling stock across British railway networks. The private credit unit writes senior direct loans to middle-market European companies, typically hold-to-maturity positions that sit on the general account. Asset-class exposure cuts across real estate, infrastructure debt, private credit, and corporate defined-benefit pension solutions — with most of the alternative allocations run out of London but deployed across the UK, Western Europe, and select US credit markets. Total group assets under management crossed the £1.2 trillion mark in recent public disclosures, though LGIM does not break out alternatives-only AUM in its standard reporting. The investment floor houses dedicated teams for real assets, index, multi-asset, and liability-driven investing, with a significant operational presence in Cardiff alongside the London headquarters. Adjacent vehicles include Legal & General Capital, the group's principal investment arm, which deploys proprietary balance-sheet equity into residential, digital infrastructure, and clean-energy platforms. In June 2024, the firm announced it had committed up to £500 million to fund retirement community developments, extending its annuity-backed real asset push. LGIM's structural differentiator lies in the tight coupling between its UK pension-liability engine and its alternatives factory. Annuity sales generate long-dated, predictable liabilities, which the real assets and private credit desks can match with holdings designed for duration and yield. That internal demand pipeline means the firm rarely needs to raise third-party commitments for new alternative vehicles, allowing it to move directly into deals without waiting on a close. The resulting architecture looks less like a traditional fund manager and more like an insured balance sheet with an embedded alternatives origination arm.
General information
Firm type
Generalist
Year founded
1970
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
Europe
Country
United Kingdom
City
London
Corporate office
London, United Kingdom
Principals
Michelle Scrimgeour
CEO
Sonja Laud
Chief Investment Officer
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who makes final investment decisions at LGIM?
Sonja Laud has held the Chief Investment Officer role since 2019 and oversees the full investment platform, which includes real assets, fixed income, multi-asset, and index teams. Individual direct-investment decisions within real estate or private credit are made at the desk level under delegated authority. The CEO, Michelle Scrimgeour, and the broader Legal & General Group board set the strategic direction but do not typically weigh in on single-deal approvals.
How does LGIM source its real asset and private credit deals?
LGIM's real assets division maintains a direct origination network across UK commercial and residential property, often working alongside developers and local authorities on large-scale regeneration projects. The private credit team sources directly from middle-market sponsors and corporate borrowers, held to maturity rather than syndicated. Infrastructure debt opportunities frequently arise from the firm's relationships within the UK energy and transport sectors, where its pension capital is a natural long-duration match.
Does LGIM raise third-party discretionary funds or deploy from its own balance sheet?
LGIM primarily deploys capital from the insurance and pension mandates it manages, meaning most alternative assets sit within existing client portfolios or on the Legal & General Group balance sheet. The firm is not a traditional GP in the sense of closing blind-pool funds; rather, it uses the annuity and pension book as a permanent, growing source of deployment firepower. Some segregated real asset mandates exist for external pension schemes, but broad third-party fundraising is not the core model.
What is the relationship between LGIM and Legal & General Capital?
Legal & General Capital is the group's principal investment division — it writes direct equity cheques into early-stage infrastructure platforms, housing delivery, and clean-energy ventures, often seeding vehicles that LGIM later manages or invests alongside. LGIM, by contrast, is the regulated asset manager managing client and insurance capital. The two arms frequently co-operate: LGC incubates and derisks an investment strategy, and once it is scaled, LGIM opens it to third-party or internal permanent capital.
Which geographies does LGIM's alternatives effort target?
The direct real estate and infrastructure debt platforms are overwhelmingly UK-focused, though the private credit team extends into Western European corporate lending. The firm has selectively participated in US private placement debt, but the bulk of alternative holdings remains UK-denominated. The index and passive books, by contrast, span global equity and fixed-income markets.
How significant is the internal annuity book as a source of alternative-deployment capital?
Legal & General's annuity sales — particularly from bulk purchase annuities for defined-benefit pension schemes — generate tens of billions of pounds in long-dated liabilities each year. The investment team matches those liabilities by originating or acquiring long-life, inflation-linked assets, which makes the annuity pipeline the single largest recurring source of demand for the real assets and private credit desks. That internal flow insulates the alternatives platform from fundraising cycles that constrain traditional GPs.
Does LGIM operate any philanthropic or grant-making structures linked to the parent group?
The Legal & General Group runs a corporate foundation focused on financial inclusion, skills development, and community regeneration, but it operates separately from LGIM's investment functions. Grant-making and impact-investment pilot programmes are occasionally used to seed housing affordability projects, though the principal relationship is carried at the group level rather than inside the regulated investment manager.
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