Legal & General Property, the property fund management arm of the Legal & General insurance and investments group, has upped its in-house research capabilities with the appointment of Bill Page as business research manager.

Page joins from Jones Lang LaSalle, where he had headed its EMEA offices research team for seven years, overseeing seven analysts and holding overall responsibility for monitoring and forecasting developments across the region. Before this he worked in research within the Estates Gazette Group.

In his new role he reports to Rob Martin, Legal & General Property’s director of research.

Last week the Legal & General Group reported record sales in the third quarter of 2012, recording a 28 per cent increase in its annual premium equivalent. The UK insurer saw increases of over 30 per cent in its UK and US sales of protection products as retail and corporate customers sought to reduce exposure to financial risk.

L&G’s investment management division saw net inflows of £5.6 billion (around $9.1 billion) during the first three quarters of 2012, up 28 per cent on the same period in 2011. Much of this growth has been driven by international clients in the US, the Gulf and Europe, plus the firm’s first mandate from China. At 30 September 2012 LGIM had net assets under management of over £390 billion.

The firm has also benefited from the introduction of pensions automatic enrolment in the UK, seeing net pension inflows of £0.4 billion in Q3.