MOVES-Legal & General hires M&A director from Goldman Sachs

LONDON, March 2 (Reuters) - Insurer Legal & General has hired Paul Miller, currently head of Europe, Middle East and Africa insurance in the investment banking division at Goldman Sachs, as group strategy and merger and acquisitions director.

Miller will report directly to Nigel Wilson, L&G (LSE: LGEN.L - news) chief executive, the company said in a statement on Thursday. He will start in the newly-created position in June, it added.

Legal & General is one of Britain's biggest insurers and its fund management arm has 850 billion pounds ($1.05 trillion) in assets under management.

L&G's M&A strategy is focusing on "bolt-on" acquisitions, an L&G spokesman said.

L&G has said it is interested in acquiring books of annuities which are closed to new customers. It bought a 3 billion pound annuity book from Dutch insurer Aegon (Swiss: AGN.SW - news) last year.

Analysts also expect more consolidation in the asset management business after UK asset manager Henderson bought U.S. rival Janus (Shenzhen: 300083.SZ - news) last year in an all-share $6 billion deal.

($1 = 0.8133 pounds) (Reporting by Carolyn Cohn; editing by Simon Jessop)