Citi puts Legal & General on ‘negative catalyst watch’ ahead of results

Legal & General was under the cosh on Friday as Citi cut its 2023 earnings per share estimates and opened a 30-day ‘negative catalyst watch’ on the shares ahead of full-year results on 6 March.

The bank cut its 2023 EPS estimate by around 27%, primarily driven by negative investment variances but said its operating profit estimate also declined, by around 3%.

"There is some follow to the outer years as our EPS estimates decline by circa 10%," it said.

Citi said it expects material EPS downgrades into results "and although this is primarily investment variance driven, this highlights the opacity of Legal & General Capital (LGC) and comes against a backdrop of L&G being the best performing UK life insurer over the past three months and what we see as limited upside capital return surprise potential".

At 0812 GMT, the shares were down 2.7% at 234.70p.