Legal & General (GB:LGEN) stock is up today after the investing and insurance company announced the sale of its U.S. protection and pension risk transfer businesses. The buyer of this business is collaborator Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance.
The deal with Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance is worth $2.3 billion and will see it acquire a 5% stake in Legal & General. Once complete, Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance will own the U.S. protection business and hold a 20% stake in the pension risk transfer business. Legal & General will own the rest of the pension risk transfer business via reinsurance arrangements.
Legal & General said it will return $1.24 billion from the sale to shareholders through buybacks. The remaining funds will go toward its growth strategy and the two companies will continue to expand their relationship after this deal.
How This Affects LGEN Stock Today
Legal & General shareholders are excited about this deal with Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance. As such, shares of LGEN stock are up 2.6% as of this writing. This builds on its 6.61% increase year-to-date and 10.76% gain over the past 52 weeks.
LGEN stock also saw heavy trading today alongside the sale announcement. That had more than 48.59 million shares changing hands as of this writing, well above the investing and insurance company’s three-month daily average of 16.43 million units.
Is LGEN Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, the analysts’ consensus rating for Legal & General is Moderate Buy based on six Buy and three Hold ratings over the last three months. With that comes an average price target of 266p, a high of 330p, and a low of 230p. This represents a potential 8.57% upside for LGEN stock.
See more LGEN stock analyst ratings
Questions or Comments about the article? Write to editor@tipranks.com