By Iain Withers
LONDON (Reuters) -British insurer Legal & General has entered a private credit partnership with Blackstone, the companies said in a statement on Thursday, becoming the latest finance firm to bulk up in the booming market of investors lending to companies.
L&G, which is also Britain’s largest investment firm with 1.1 trillion pounds ($1.5 trillion) of assets under management, said the tie-up would help it strengthen in two areas targeted by CEO Antonio Simoes: the United States and private credit.
The British firm said its annuities business would access investment-grade credit assets via Blackstone, particularly in the U.S., investing billions of pounds over time by putting in up to 10% of the unit’s new business flows.
Finance firms have been vying for a larger foothold in the private credit market, with some such as Citi, UBS and Capital Group similarly partnering with existing players like Apollo, General Atlantic and KKR.
Others like Wall Street giant BlackRock have bought, with the $12 billion acquisition of private credit firm HPS Investment Partners, while others such as HSBC have looked to build their own ventures.
L&G’s Simoes said in the statement that the partnership with Blackstone would help it meet growing demand from clients for public-private investment products.
“L&G will benefit from a more diverse pipeline of assets for our annuity book, and growth in asset management as we develop more sophisticated investment solutions for clients around the world,” Simoes said.
The partnership was first reported by Bloomberg News.
($1 = 0.7349 pounds)
(Reporting by Iain Withers in London and Dheeraj Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema, Joe Bavier and Stephen Coates)
