Legal & General (LSE: LGEN) shares haven’t exactly been the investment of the decade. Over five years, they’re up just 14.5%.

Over the same period, the FTSE 100 as a whole climbed almost 50%. Yet the insurer and asset manager is surprisingly popular, regularly featuring among the top-10 most bought UK blue-chips. Why?

While it’s failed as a growth stock, it’s a terrific income play. The trailing yield is now 7.25%, the highest on the FTSE 100. At times, it’s yielded as much as 10%, helping to compensate for some of that lost growth.

Do dividends compensate for growth shortcomings?

Yet it’s possible to offer both a high yield and decent share price growth too. Just look at Legal & General’s big rival Aviva. Its shares are up 75% in the last five years, while its trailing dividend yield is 5.5%. The yield’s lower, but overall it’s easily the better investment.

So why have Legal & General shares been so patchy? The main reason, inevitably, is bumpy profit growth. The business is going through a major reshaping, with the board battling to simplify its structure to make it faster and more focused. Investors have also had concerns about its asset management business and whether the dividend can keep rising.

Yet I can see three good reasons to consider buying the shares today:

• The dividend yield is attractive for income seekers, well supported and expected to rise by 2% a year from here.
• The board has also rewarded investors launching a record £1.2bn share buyback in March.
• Investing is cyclical. There are tentative signs that Aviva shares are slowing after their strong run, while Legal & General is finally shaking a leg.

I can see three potential risks as well:

• The asset management turnaround still has something to prove.
• Income isn’t everything. The shares could remain sluggish if investors don’t see enough growth.
• Legal & General has more than £1.2trn under management. A wider stock market crash could hit commission income, and customer inflows.

So what’s the total return?

Let’s say somebody invested £12,000 in Legal & General shares five years ago (on 13 August 2021) at 262p. At that price, they would have had 4,580 shares.

Today, their £12,000 would now be worth around £13,740 based on share price growth alone. That’s pretty so-so. So does the sky-high yield compensate for that? Let’s see.

If our investor had reinvested every dividend they received, that original £12k would be worth roughly £19,500 today. That’s a total return of about 63% over five years.

That’s better, and it shows why L&G’s still in demand despite its lacklustre share price performance. But it’s not brilliant. The FTSE 100 yields around 3.1%, with dividends reinvested, its total five-year return would be similar.

I think the shares are worth considering, especially for income seekers. But I think investors deserve to see some share price growth too. Investing is cyclical so let’s hope it starts playing catch up on Aviva.

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Harvey Jones owns shares in Legal & General.