When Eric Adler joined Legal & General in December 2024 as chief executive of its asset management division, he arrived with a reputation forged in private markets.
Fourteen years at the US investment giant PGIM, where he helped build a $350bn private alternatives platform spanning real estate, credit and infrastructure, had made him one of the industry’s most experienced global alternative investors.
His appointment, which saw Adler take over L&G’s fund management business from Michelle Scrimgeour, followed the group’s announcement in June 2024 that it would merge its public and private markets businesses
Yet the 57-year-old father of three insists he did not join the UK’s largest asset manager simply to build another private markets empire.
Instead, he argues, the challenge at L&G is more subtle: how to combine scale in public markets with targeted expansion in privates, while avoiding the “soft middle” that threatens large asset managers trying to do everything at once.
“We have all the pieces,” he says. “The real question is sequencing and focus. The industry has consolidated so much that halfway solutions just don’t work anymore.”
From Paris property to global platforms
Adler’s career has mirrored the evolution of private markets themselves. Originally from Arizona, after a brief stint in banking he moved into European real estate in the mid-1990s, joining what is now Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield – the Paris-based real estate giant which owns Westfield shopping malls – when property investing was deeply unfashionable.
“It was a counter-cyclical play,” he recalls. “And the best thing I ever did.”
From there came roles at Morgan Stanley and Tishman Speyer, before his long tenure at PGIM, Prudential’s asset management arm. What began as a European real estate role expanded into global real assets and then into a multi-asset private alternatives business.
That experience explains Adler’s attraction to L&G’s structure. Like PGIM, the firm is owned by an insurer, the FTSE-100 Legal & General Group. But unlike some insurance-owned managers, more than 90 per cent of its £1.3tn of assets are managed for third-party clients.
“That combination is rare,” Adler says. “You get the insurance balance sheet and expertise, but you also have a genuinely arm’s-length, global asset manager with institutional, wholesale and defined contribution distribution.”
A measured bet on private markets
Under group chief executive António Simões, L&G set a target in 2024: to grow private market assets to £85bn by the end of 2028. When Adler arrived, L&G managed just under £60bn in private assets; today that figure is above £70bn.
Progress, Adler stresses, is less about headline numbers than about building durable capabilities. He has narrowed L&G’s private markets ambitions to three core areas: real estate, private credit and infrastructure.
Real estate was the natural starting point. L&G has long been a dominant player in UK property, and Adler believes the current point in the cycle is attractive.
“Real estate’s been bumping along the bottom of a cycle without real distress,” he says. “For long-term investors, that’s exactly when you want to be building.”
Over the past couple of years, the firm has expanded from a UK-centric real estate platform into a global one, adding US exposure through the acquisition in 2024 of a minority stake in Boston-based real estate private equity firm Taurus Investment Holdings, which has a strong focus on sustainability and retrofit development.
And last year it added European and Asian capabilities through its acquisition of a 75% stake in Connecticut-based real estate investor Proprium Capital Partners.
Adler describes both acquisitions as part of a “buy, build or partner” approach to boosting the firm’s investment capabilities, adding that L&G group’s scale, research and sustainability expertise give it credibility with founder-led property firms seeking institutional partners.
Private credit is the second pillar. Investment-grade private credit has long been a strength for L&G, reflecting its insurance heritage. A strategic minority stake in European direct lender Pemberton, acquired in 2015, is now being actively integrated into L&G’s asset management offering.
The two firms recently won a mandate from insurer Admiral for a total-return private credit strategy combining L&G’s investment-grade capabilities with Pemberton’s sub-investment-grade lending. More products are in development, including for non-institutional investors.
In the US, Adler is more cautious. “The market is toppy,” he says, pointing to intense competition and high valuations in sub-investment-grade private credit.
For now, L&G relies partly on partnerships while waiting for more attractive entry points. These include a tie-up with US alternatives giant Blackstone which will allow L&G’s annuities business to access investment grade assets through Blackstone’s private credit origination platform.
Announced in July last year, Adler describes the deal with Blackstone as an opportunity “that was just too good to pass up”.
Infrastructure is the third focus area, particularly digital infrastructure and renewable energy. Last April, L&G completed a final close on its first clean power fund and is now considering a successor. A new digital infrastructure fund, seeded with balance-sheet assets, reached a €600m first close in August.
Data centres dominate that strategy, reflecting global demand for computing capacity. L&G recently backed a hyperscale data centre development in east London, a £750m project that Adler sees as emblematic of the overlap between real estate and infrastructure.
Why not private equity?
Notably absent from L&G’s priorities is traditional private equity. Adler says this is a deliberate choice rather than a philosophical objection.
“The world does not need another leveraged buyout player,” he says. “It’s a very mature, very competitive asset class.”
Buying an established private equity firm would be expensive, while starting from scratch would be unrealistic. Unless valuations fall sharply, Adler sees limited strategic justification for entry.
However, he is more intrigued by secondaries — buying existing stakes in private funds — which he believes will become increasingly important as a liquidity mechanism across private equity, real estate, credit and infrastructure.
“If we’re strong in originating and managing primary assets,” he says, “there’s a natural bridge into secondaries over time.”
Blending public and private markets
Despite the focus on private assets they still account for less than 10 per cent of total AuM and Adler is clear that L&G remains, above all, a public markets powerhouse.
The strategic challenge is integration rather than substitution. L&G is a leader in index strategies and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), manages a large active fixed income business, and plays a central role in UK DC pensions and pension risk transfer (PRT).
Public market strategies face structural headwinds — fee pressure in index funds and declining UK defined benefit schemes — but Adler argues L&G is well positioned where the money is flowing.
“We’re seeing a shift towards higher value-added, more solutions-oriented strategies,” he says. “DC, annuities, PRT — those are areas where we’re leaders.”
Crucially, Adler believes future growth lies in hybrid solutions that combine public and private assets, particularly for retail and DC investors who need liquidity and cost efficiency alongside diversification and returns.
“You can’t give non-institutional investors pure privates,” he says. “But you can blend private market exposure with liquid, low-cost building blocks. That’s where having scale in index and ETFs really matters.”
Global ambitions, disciplined execution
Internationally, L&G is pushing beyond its UK base, which currently accounts for 56% of its business – a proportion that Adler expects to reduce to less than 50% in the future.
Asia is a growth engine, particularly for active fixed income and unconstrained strategies distributed through wealth channels. In continental Europe, ETFs are a priority. In the US, L&G has built a $250bn business from scratch, increasingly focused on insurance clients.
The Middle East, Adler says, will become more important as the firm expands its private market offerings and the firm is at an early stage of identifying locations in the region to open offices.
Across regions and asset classes, his message is consistent: clarity of purpose matters more than breadth.
“Clients are doing more with fewer managers,” he says. “They want to know where you’re committed: not just capable.”
After a year in the role, Adler appears confident that L&G’s mix of scale, insurance heritage and selective ambition can deliver. The risk, he acknowledges, is not under-reach but over-reach.
“The temptation is to do everything,” he says. “The discipline is knowing what to do first.”
