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Institutional investor doubles housing portfolio to £1.2bn
The institutional investor Legal & General (L&G) has doubled the value of its housing assets to almost £1.2bn, it has announced.
In its results for the calendar year 2018, it said that it now owns £1.158bn of housing assets, up from £588m in 2017.
Although it launched its own affordable housing arm last year with an aim to deliver 3,000 affordable homes a year within four years, this growth came primarily from elsewhere.
In the first half of the year, it bought the remaining 52.1% it did not already own off the developer Cala Homes for £315m.
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The fund, which made £1.5bn in profit last year, bought land around the country throughout the year with a view to build homes, such as a site in Horsham with planning consent for 2,750 new homes.
L&G has also increased the size of its later living business, buying land and building homes throughout the year. In its results, it said it had five sites under construction and a further seven “progressing through planning approvals”.
Over the year, it also committed an extra £50m to its build-to-rent arm, a joint venture with the Dutch pension fund service provider PGGM. In 2018, this arm acquired a site in Woolwich and forward funded a development in Croydon.
Through all its various housing ventures, L&G sold or completed for rental 2,500 homes last year.
Commenting on the results, Nigel Wilson, group chief executive, said: “Legal & General’s consistent strategy, market leading businesses, balance sheet strength and high-quality people have enabled us to deliver eight years of compound annual profit growth of over 10%.
“2018 saw political uncertainty, asset market declines and slowing economic growth but we are resilient and performed strongly. We became the UK’s first £1tn investment manager, executed a record £9bn of pension risk transfer deals and invested billions in the UK’s future infrastructure and cities.”
