Legal & General launches Guild Living

Phil Bayliss, chief executive officer of Later Living at Legal & General and chairman at Guild Living

Legal & General has launched Guild Living, a developer and operator of urban later living communities, as part of a partnership with a team of global experts in design, development and wellness.

The team of 11 include Michael Eggington as chief executive officer, Catalina Hoffmann as director of wellness and care and Chris Bamford as care operations director.

Guild Living aims to build more than 3,000 homes across the UK’s towns and cities over the next five years, this would mean a development value of around £2bn.

Its later living communities will consist of around 200 apartments with a 24-hour support network for the over 65s. Other facilities will include a restaurant, a physiotherapy gym and pool, consultant rooms for GP surgeries and retail space for local businesses – all of which will be open to the local community.

‘Our vision is to deliver a significant change to how our older generation live,’ said Eugene Marchese, design and innovation director at Guild Living. ‘We will create beautiful “age-friendly” environments that are activated by world leading wellness programmes and activities designed to engage and connect our residents with family, friends and the greater community.

‘Each Guild Living community will be designed with innovative architecture, communal facilities, and academically accredited wellness programmes, that will stimulate our residents; physically, socially and cognitively.’

Phil Bayliss, chief executive officer of Later Living at Legal & General and chairman at Guild Living, said: ‘With over three million over 60s in UK seeking to downsize their homes, we see a £100bn investment opportunity.

‘We are establishing the Guild to address this staggering opportunity and tackle the NHS and care crisis head on. This forms an excellent extension of our retirement ecosystem. Nobody knows UK pensioners better; we are the largest UK manager of pension scheme assets, have over three million defined contribution pension scheme customers and pay over one million pensioners a month. Through Guild Living together with our existing out-of-town offering, we will now be delivering over 7,000 later living homes over the next five years.’