UK - Legal & General Investment Management has posted a 40.5% rise in new corporate pension business in the third quarter.

LGIM said that it had new corporate pension business worth a total of four billion pounds (5.6 billion euros) in the period, up from 2.86 billion pounds in the 2002 quarter.

Of the four billion-pound figure, 3.1 billion pounds were pooled while 897 million pounds were segregated, against 2.85 billion pounds and 12 million pounds a year earlier.

For the nine months to September 30, LGIM posted new corporate pensions business of 9.58 billion pounds, down from 9.66 billion pounds in the same period last year.

It said 181 clients have been gained in 2003 without a beauty parade.

The figures were disclosed in a presentation made to analysts by L&G group director of investments Tim Breedon that has been posted to L&G’s web site.

According to the presentation, LGIM will target European pension and institutional markets as part of a three-year product and marketing strategy. And it aims to “retain our market leading UK franchise for index funds”.

LGIM will target fixed interest, saying it is “highly scalable” and that the “shift by pension funds to fixed interest is still in early stages”. It was “well positioned for continuing investor shift to bonds”.

It says that it is targeting a “substantial rise in profitability” at its property arm under head of property Mark Creedy. New opportunities existed in transition management, index bond funds and “passive, not indexed” funds.

In its first-half results in July Legal & General said LGIM was winning an increasing number of bond mandates for both active and indexed management.