Paris: Axa SA, France’s largest insurer, said first-quarter revenue gained 1 per cent, helped by higher prices and volumes from property & casualty operations especially in Germany, the UK and faster-developing nations like Turkey.
Sales rose to 31.8 billion euros ($36.6 billion) from 31.5 billion euros a year earlier, the Paris-based company said in a statement Tuesday. Revenue at the insurer’s life and savings business, its largest, was almost unchanged at 17.4 billion euros, while property-and-casualty premiums rose about 2.6 per cent to 11.7 billion euros, the firm said.
Axa’s asset-management operations had net inflows of about 10 billion euros in the period, down from 19 billion euros a year earlier, the company said. Equity market turmoil in January and February weighed on asset-management commissions and revenue from that unit fell to 883 million euros from 956 million euros a year earlier.
“P&C revenues were slightly higher than consensus and our forecasts, helped partly by positive pricing actions as Axa put through price increases in high-growth markets as well as mature markets,” Citigroup Inc. analysts wrote in a note to clients. “We do not expect the stock to react significantly on these results.”
Axa shares rose as much as 0.84 per cent and were trading at 22.12 euros at 9:52am in Paris.
The insurer has sold its Elevate business in the UK to Standard Life Plc and is in talks to sell its SunLife unit and its traditional investment and pension business there, the company said Wednesday. The units are expected to sell for about 650 million pounds ($945 million), resulting in a negative 400 million-euro impact on net income, according to the statement.
