Legal and General (L&G) reported at its half-year results, published at 10am on 5 August 2026, that its private credit loans, including commercial real estate loans, reached £15.16 billion as at 30 June 2026, up from £12.52 billion at 30 June 2025. The growth represents an increase of over £2.6 billion in twelve months, reflecting sustained institutional appetite for direct lending (private credit, meaning non-bank lenders providing loans directly to companies or against real assets) as an alternative to public bond markets. Separately, Unilever published H1 2026 results today showing underlying sales growth of 4.8 per cent, driven primarily by higher volumes, and upgraded its full-year outlook. Turnover reached €25.6 billion, with underlying operating margin rising to 20.3 per cent. Underlying earnings per share rose 2.4 per cent. The second quarter was particularly strong, with 5.8 per cent underlying sales growth and 5.5 per cent volume growth described by CEO Fernando Fernandez as Unilever's best quarterly volume performance in more than a decade. Emerging markets, representing 60 per cent of group turnover, grew 7.0 per cent, led by India, Indonesia and Latin America. Home Care was the strongest-performing business group at 7.6 per cent growth. On portfolio transformation, Unilever confirmed the planned combination of its Foods business with McCormick remains on schedule for completion by mid-2027, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals. McCormick announced the operating model and executive team for the combined entity in July and plans a secondary listing in London.
Why this matters
L&G's private credit loan book reaching £15.2 billion, a jump of more than £2.6 billion year-on-year, is a concrete illustration of the structural shift in corporate and real estate lending away from bank balance sheets toward institutional private credit platforms. This trend directly affects leveraged finance and structured finance practices as borrowers seek non-bank alternatives and institutional lenders compete to deploy capital. Unilever's results are commercially significant because they show that a major consumer goods group can deliver volume-led growth even as macroeconomic uncertainty persists, which de-risks the Foods separation transaction and supports the case for a London secondary listing that will need to attract institutional support from UK equity investors.
On the Ground
L&G's private credit growth generates ongoing work in banking and finance practices: loan documentation, security package review, intercreditor arrangements, and legal opinion coordination as the book expands into new asset classes. The Unilever-McCormick transaction, which is expected to complete by mid-2027, will require substantial M&A, capital markets, and regulatory clearance work, with the planned London secondary listing creating a prospectus drafting exercise, verification notes, and listing application coordination. A trainee on the L&G private credit side would assist with facility agreement schedule review, drawdown and utilisation request documentation, and landlord consents for commercial real estate-backed loans. On the Unilever-McCormick side, a trainee would support verification of the scheme or offer document and help coordinate PDMR notification letters around the secondary listing.
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