With £1.2 trillion ($1.3 trillion) in AuM, L&G wields considerable weight in the UK and international financial space, including the wealth management arena.

L&G Asset Management is pushing further into delivering real estate capabilities for wealth management client portfolios, part of a broader reinforcement of work it conducts on the wealth side.

In May last year UK-listed L&G announced an agreement to buy a 75 per cent stake in the global real estate investor, Proprium. In October 2024, it also took a stake in Boston, US-based Taurus Investment Holdings, a global real estate private equity firm. 

“Our recent strategic investments in Taurus and an acquisition of a 75 per cent stake in Proprium, have broadened both L&G's US and global real estate exposure and capabilities for clients,” Ashley Fagan, head of distribution for global financial institutions at L&G Asset Management, told WealthBriefing recently. “Proprium offers access to higher returning areas of the market, and has an extensive track record in the space, this is proving hugely interesting to clients, both institutional and wealth, looking to get exposure to higher returns.”

L&G will be issuing a trading update for the third quarter on 16 November. In its interim results, total assets under management stood at £1.2 trillion ($1.34 trillion), of which private markets accounted for £79 billion, a 22 per cent gain. The overall L&G group made a core operating profit of £918 million in the first six months of the year. In April, L&G promoted one of its senior figures, Emiel van den Heiligenberg, as the new CIO of its asset management business.

Capacity
Fagan argues that L&G has the financial muscle to co-manufacture bespoke solutions for a consolidated number of large, sophisticated intermediaries.

“With our strength in index, active fixed income, multi-asset, and private markets, L&G is well placed to address this market as it evolves, working with wealth intermediaries and their clients to tailor specific solutions to suit their wide-ranging investment objectives,” Fagan said. 

One theme that emerges, Fagan said, is that clients' behaviour is becoming more “institutional.” Another theme that this news service has explored is that clients are sitting on cash and are unsure what to do about it. “It is also about some investors not fully appreciating the opportunity costs of having a high amount of cash and the potential to miss out on higher returning investments,” she said. (This news service has explored this propensity to hold cash in articles here and here.)

A question on the minds of many private banks is how to encourage clients to get out of cash, she said. “It is a challenge in the UK and globally as well.”