Axa Chairman Under The Oriental Influence

With a successful New York Stock Exchange listing for his group launched over the summer, and sharply improved half-year results yesterday, Bébéar is again turning towards Asia in his efforts to diversify the geographical reach of the group. Early next month, a year ahead of the original plans, Axa will introduce to the stock exchange 49 per cent of National Mutual, the Australian life assurance group which it took over last year.

Bébéar is proud of the fact that more than 400,000 of the business' customers who were allotted shares have decided to hold on to them. He sees National Mutual as the logical launching pad for Axa's interests in China and other parts of Asia, and hints that he may seek to use it for additional rights issues designed to fund expansion in the region, while gradually increasing Axa's 51 per cent stake in the process.

 

While Bébéar says that the lesson of the group's New York listing is the need to be in permanent contact with investors'', his oriental influence and his caution as a life-long insurer pulls him partly in the other direction.

He argues, for example, that half-yearly results have little sense for his business. It would be better to look at three years than three months, he says.

In the same vein, speaking about the very gradual progression of the group's new business in Japan, he says: 'You have to be patient, like everywhere else in Asia. They are not quarterly-reporting countries. Their notion of time is very different.

He says he is considering opening a non-life business to add to the life assurance activities in Japan, and has applied to the Chinese authorities to opennew offices there. Earlier this month, he announced plans to invest $500 million over the next few years in a direct investment vehicle in Asia.

Closer to home, Axa has undergone considerable restructuring recently. Two weeks ago, it announced the unwinding of its links with the Italian insurer Generali in spite of initial expressions of interest in co-operation.

There are not many joint ventures in insurance,'' Bébéar says. They wanted to be free to invest in other companies.

One effect of the sale to Axa of Generali's remaining 11 per cent interest in the group has been to dilute the holding by Paribas, the French financial group.Bébéar says this was necessary, in part because of US regulatory concerns that Paribas would otherwise have too great a control over its Equitable subsidiary./incs/right.asp"-->