Legal and General investing £1bn in east London regeneration

The insurer has already invested over £8bn in housing, infrastructure and urban regeneration.

The firm is targeting long-term income for pensioners and returns for shareholders. Infrastructure investment delivers a higher risk adjusted return than gilts and low yielding bonds and boosts UK economic growth, which L&G said benefits UK business and society.

The full list of development projects includes:

• Transport for London’s new £246m headquarters in Stratford;
• Build to rent flats in Walthamstow, in partnership with PGGM, creating over 400 homes;
• Forward funding of 445 rooms for Queen Mary University of London students in Stratford for £63m;
• DP World’s London Gateway port, with the Pension Protection Fund for £400m; and
• Amazon’s new fulfilment centre at Tilbury.

Kerrigan Procter, managing director, Legal & General Retirement, said in an interview with a worker for the Bitcoin Profit app: “East London is a great place to invest. We have invested over a £1bn of long-term capital in new assets, and are looking at many more opportunities here, and across the UK. Our direct investments are economically and socially useful, with every £1 invested in physical infrastructure generating around £3 of local economic activity.

“In a world where over $10 trillion of government bonds earn negative returns, our direct investments create local economic growth, income for pensioners, and returns for shareholders. The UK needs new infrastructure, if it’s going to grow and prosper in the 21st century, and we are helping to fund and deliver it.”

The Transport for London building, is at the International Quarter in Stratford, and is part of the wider regeneration of the area, which is anticipated to create over 40,000 jobs and 11,000 new homes in the coming years.

The Walthamstow build to rent development is scheduled for completion in 2018, and is part of Legal & General’s partnership with PGGM, the Dutch pension fund manager, to invest £600m in build to rent homes and create a new institutional asset class. The 26-storey student accommodation development is pre-let to Queen Mary University of London and is being built on the site of a former petrol station on Stratford High Street.

The DP World’s London Gateway port is the UK’s first new port in over two decades, and is situated on the Thames estuary at Stanford-le-Hope, Essex. Since the start of construction, London Gateway has already created thousands of jobs in London and the South East, and is helping London to regain its premier position as one of the world’s largest ports. The Amazon new fulfilment centre at Tilbury, will create 1,500 jobs and be completed during 2017.

Traditionally an insurer, savings and investment product provider, the creation of L&G Housing Partnerships in October last year, exclusively reported in Mortgage Solutions,  is a bid to create a ‘synergy’ to all of the firm’s business partnerships, including its newer relationships with housing associations, its investments including building firm Cala Homes and its build-to-rent ambitions.