Legal & General Group Plc

Legal & General is a financial services company that is headquartered in London. The company was formed by six lawyers in 1836 and was originally called the New Law Life Assurance Society, limited to those in the legal profession. The group would expand its policies to the general public, renaming itself the Legal & General Life Assurance Society. The company would acquire other companies such as the Metropolitan Life Assurance Company of New York and expand overseas. In the 1970s, the society would become a wholly owned division of Legal & General Group Plc, a holding company formed by the company. It would buy Government Employee Life Insurance from GEICO and the Dutch branch of Unlike Assurance Group in an effort to further its international presence. In the new millennia, Legal & General would sell Legal & General Bank and Legal & General Mortgage Services to Northern Rock in 2003 and outsource its entire IT development areas. Today the company offers a wide variety of financial products and services, including direct sales services and brokerage agreements, and also owns one of the largest estate agency businesses in the United Kingdom. Legal & General Group operates through five divisions: Legal & General Assurance Society with retail and group insurance products, Legal & General Retirement with annuity contracts and longevity insurance products, Legal & General Investment Management with index fund, active fixed income, liquidity management and solution and liability driven investments, Legal & General America with individual term assurance, and Legal & General Capital with portfolio managements. The company current has over one trillion in total assets, employing over 9000 employees worldwide that cater to its 10 million customers. Some of its mutual funds include the Global 100 Index, Global Emerging Markets Index, Global Health and Pharmaceuticals Index, and Multi Manager Growth. The company launched its first ETFs, the LGIM Commodity Composite Source ETF, in 2012.