L&G to unveil £600m takeover of housebuilder Cala

Legal & General (LSE: LGEN.L - news) (L&G) will on Tuesday unveil a £605m takeover of Cala Group, handing the FTSE-100 insurer full control of one of the UK's most upmarket housebuilders.

Sky News has learnt that L&G has agreed to pay roughly £315m to acquire the 52% of Cala it does not already own.

The takeover will involve L&G buying out its fellow major shareholder, the property investor Patron Capital, as well as Cala's management team.

Barring any last-minute hitches, the deal will be announced on Tuesday morning, according to City sources.

The deal will add Cala to a portfolio of L&G-owned businesses which are trying to address some of Britain's biggest economic quandaries.

Last week, Theresa May, the Prime Minister, ordered housing developers to stop hoarding land and get on with building new homes amid a continuing squeeze on new housing supply.

Cala's ownership was split between L&G and Patron in 2013, with its management team holding a small stake in the company.

Lazard (Frankfurt: A0DQP8 - news) , the investment bank, has conducted several rounds of talks with prospective buyers in the last 18 months, including with Evergrande (HKSE: 3333-OL.HK - news) , a Chinese property group.

Cala, which describes itself as Britain's most upmarket housebuilder of scale, said in January that it was on course to notch up a sixth consecutive year of record sales and profits.

"Following the General Election result, we now have a Conservative government with a stated manifesto pledge to build one million new homes by 2020," the company said last year.

Cala, L&G and Patron all declined to comment on Monday.