Lloyds Banking To Acquire Embark Group

(RTTNews) - Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L, LYG), on Thursday, announced that it intends to acquire the Embark Group, an investment and retirement platform business. The acquisition is expected to complete in the fourth quarter of 2021, subject to regulatory approvals.

Embark enhances the Group's capabilities to address the attractive mass market and self-directed Wealth segment, completing its Wealth proposition.

Embark would also enable the Group to re-platform its pensions and retirement proposition, delivering a market-leading platform for intermediaries and significantly strengthening its offering in Retirement, an important growth market.

Lloyds Banking further noted that it is targeting a top-three position in direct-to-consumer self-directed and robo-advice business in the medium term. The Group is also targeting a top-three position in the individual pensions and retirement drawdown market by 2025. Therefore, the Group raised its Strategic Review 2021 net new money target from £25 billion to about £40 billion by 2023, to reflect its increased growth potential.

The transaction is being cash funded from Lloyds' strong capital position. At half year 2021, the Group reported a CET1 ratio of 16.7%, significantly ahead of the ongoing target of about 12.5%, plus a management buffer of about 1%.