AXA’s 9-Month Results Show Gains

France’s AXA Group’s none month results showed significant gains in all of the diversified giant’s activities, with total revenues for the period of €71.625 billion ($105.12 billion) a 5.9 percent increase over the same period in 2006 on a comparative basis.

The strength of the Euro against the dollar over the past nine months, however, makes comparisons with prior accounting periods somewhat less meaningful.

AXA listed the results of its four main divisions for the period as follows:
— Life and Savings new business volume annual premium equivalent (APE) was up 26 percent to €5.599 billion ($8.218 billion), or 10 percent on a comparable basis, reflecting AXA’s continued organic growth momentum. The main contributors to the growth were the United States, Australia/New Zealand and the United Kingdom while Japan remained negative. Unit-linked new business APE mix increased from 49.2 percent to 54.4 percent.
— Life and Savings new business value (NBV) was up 19 percent to €1.25 billion ($1.835 billion), or 10 percent on a comparable basis, with a margin of 22.3 percent, in line with the first 9 months of 2006 as a result of positive business mix evolution offset by negative country mix evolution.
— Property & Casualty revenues increased by 30 percent to €19.631 billion ($28.81 billion), or 4 percent on a comparable basis, mainly driven by the UK and fast growing markets (Turkey up 20 percent, Morocco up 19 percent and Asia up 10 percent) with strong Personal Motor and Household net new inflows reaching respectively 897,000 and 265,000 contracts. Personal lines were up 5 percent and Commercial lines up 2 percent.
— Asset Management revenues increased by 16 percent to €3.621 billion ($5.314 billion), or 23 percent on a comparable basis, driven by higher average Assets under Management and business mix improvement. Both AllianceBernstein and AXA IM revenues grew at a strong double digit pace.

Henri de Castries, Chairman of the AXA Management Board, commented that the nine-month figures “continued to demonstrate AXA’s sustained top line momentum while the integration of Winterthur continues to progress well. He also noted the double-digit growth in the Life & Savings, explaining that the “NBV margin improved compared to 1H07 notably as a result of an increased contribution from our Accumulator roll-out Program.”

De Castries described the Group’s P/C revenues as having “demonstrated good resilience in a competitive pricing environment, especially in retail lines.” While “our Asset Management business continued to record strong performance but experienced in
Q307 some net outflows from third party investors in low fee asset classes.”

The full report may be obtained on the Group’s web site at: www.axa.com