Legal & General sees 10 pct rise in H1 operating profit

LONDON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Insurer Legal & General posted an above-forecast 10 percent rise in first-half operating profit to 822 million pounds ($1.07 billion) on Tuesday, boosted by strong growth in its retirement business.

Analysts expected to see operating profit of 812 million pounds, according to a company-supplied forecast.

Net (LSE: 0LN0.L - news) cash generation rose 16 percent from a year earlier to 727 million pounds, against a forecast 718 million.

The firm saw annuity sales of 3.8 billion pounds, compared with 1.3 billion pounds in the first half of 2015, mainly in products known as bulk annuities, which involve taking on the risk of defined benefit, or final salary, pension schemes from companies.

"International demand for pension risk transfer solutions remains strong and is expected to continue for many years," chief executive Nigel Wilson said in a trading statement.

Legal & General Investment Management's assets under management rose 18 percent to 841.5 billion pounds, after seeing external net inflows of 9.6 billion pounds.

The firm said it had introduced a new formula for setting its interim dividend, at 30 percent of its 2015 full-year dividend. This brought the interim dividend to 4 pence per share, up 16 percent and against a forecast 3.68 pence.

($1 = 0.7700 pounds) (Reporting by Carolyn Cohn, editing by Sinead Cruise)