Legal & General profit jumps on strong direct investments unit

(Reuters) -British life insurer and asset manager Legal & General Group Plc reported an 11% jump in annual operating profit to 2.26 billion pounds ($2.96 billion) on Wednesday, helped by strong performance in its direct investments unit.

Most insurers and asset managers have performed strongly in the past year, as economies and markets gained from government and central bank stimulus to alleviate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company, which had reported a dip in its 2020 profits on a pandemic related decline in homebuilding, said it is benefiting from a bounce-back in the housebuilding market, as its annual operating profit in its direct investment unit soared 68%.

Assets under management at the insurer’s fund management arm, one of the biggest investors in Britain, totalled 1.4 trillion pounds for the year ended Dec. 31, up 11% from a year earlier.

L&G also said it would pay a full-year dividend of 18.45 pence per share.

Shares were trading up 3.2% at 253.1 pence as of 0822 GMT.

($1 = 0.7625 pounds)

(Reporting by Sinchita Mitra in Bengaluru and Carolyn Cohn in London; Editing by Rashmi Aich)