Monday 5 November 2012

Legal and General - Counting the cost of Solvency II

Spotted by his Lordship John Walton this morning, L&G  appear to have broken the mould by dropping some substantive Solvency II comment into their Q3 IMS, notably that they have booked £129m of costs in project spend.

They also go on to plead unhappiness on the inability of the rules as they stand to encourage the provision of long-term capital to the wider economy, echoing DG Faull's rollocking letter to Sr Bernadino the other week on longer-duration debt instrument capital costs, though are clearly only interested in UK investment opportunities as opposed to loading up on fruity Eurozone government debt (good on you!).

Of course the Solvency II preparation costs of most of the big-boys have been covered on this blog before, and £129m feels suitably light for a UK-focused business in comparison to some of its more complicated competitors. That said, with the FSA offering some hope of a transition to "ICA+" rather than dual running ICA and IM SCR for the next x years, how much leverage does this sort of investment buy a firm down at Canary Wharf when it comes to meeting the transitional criteria?

Look forward to seeing a bit more of these disclosures over the next week or so now we are in IMS season, but not counting on it!

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