Legal & General reportedly plans to cut around 1,000 jobs by mid-2027, equivalent to roughly 10% of its workforce, as chief executive António Simões pushes ahead with efforts to simplify the business.
According to Bloomberg, the London-based insurer and pensions group has begun a programme to remove about 1,000 roles, with employees informed of the plans on Wednesday.
The restructuring is expected to begin with voluntary redundancies in the UK, although compulsory cuts could follow depending on take-up.
António Simões, the chief executive, said in an email to employees as he announced the voluntary redundancy programme:
Over the past two and a half years, we have made significant progress executing our strategy, simplifying L&G, establishing three core businesses, and creating a more focused business.
However, over the last decade, different structures, processes and ways of working have developed across L&G, making us more complex than we need to be. To deliver our strategy successfully, we now need to make sure the way we work reflects the business we are becoming. Across L&G, we need to change how we work today and, through this, become a leaner organisation. By the middle of next year, we expect to reduce the size of our organisation by around 1,000 roles.
Legal & General’s investment management division, which oversees around £1.2 trillion of assets, is excluded from the programme because it is already undergoing a separate restructuring.
The move forms part of Simões’ wider drive to streamline operations and reduce complexity across the group.
For investors, the potential benefit is a leaner cost base and improved efficiency, but the report does not yet specify the expected restructuring charge, annual cost savings or timing of the financial benefit.
Those figures will be important in assessing whether the programme materially improves margins or simply brings a sizeable near-term restructuring cost.
