Legal & General's decision to invite offers for Cofunds just two years after it bought the platform is fraught with a number of potential pitfalls, according to industry commentators.
The insurer is understood to be considering a sale of the platform and has appointed advisers to help find a buyer, 25 months after it paid £131m to buy out fellow shareholders in a deal valuing the business at £175m. Cofunds had £71.9bn in assets under administration as of 31 March, with £37bn of this held by retail clients. The platform's pre-tax profits stood at £7.7m in 2014, up from £4.2m in 2013 in a reversal of several years of profit declines, but earlier this year L&G stated its intention to "operationally leverage" the platform in order to generate "more meaningful" profit. ...
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