L&G buys Lucida in pensions move

Legal & General is boosting its retirement business with the £151m acquisition of a firm which manages the annuity funds of thousands of pensioners.

L&G said yesterday it had agreed to buy Lucida, which runs £1.4bn of annuity assets and has 31,000 pensions on its books. The insurer said the purchase price will be funded from surplus capital, but synergies from the merger would reduce the net price to around £85m.