(24/06/2010)

AXA announced today that it has reached an agreement with Resolution Ltd to dispose part of its UK life & savings operations

AXA announced today that it has agreed to sell to Resolution Ltd its UK-based traditional life and pensions businesses, its IFA protection and corporate pension businesses, and its annuity businesses for consideration of £2.75 billion (or ca. €3.3 billion). This sale is consistent with AXA’s intention to focus on growing its wealth management business in the UK life & savings market.
This potential transaction does not call into question the AXA Group’s continuing long-term commitment to the UK market going forward. AXA UK will continue to develop its leading AXA Wealth Management operations, comprising the AXA wrap platform ('Elevate'), Architas Multi-Manager, AXA Wealth International (including Isle of Man) and the AXA Winterthur Wealth specialist pensions and investments operations, as well as its AXA Direct Protection business.
This capital efficient business represented 41% of total UK Life APE and 69% of total UK Life NBV in 2009.

The Group also remains fully committed to all its other UK-based businesses including AXA Insurance, AXA PPP Healthcare, Bluefin and the UK operations of AXA Investment Managers.

“As we have shown in the past, we are committed to focus on businesses that benefit from the right combination of scale, competitive position, growth prospects and profitability, as this is the best way to create sustainable value for our clients, our distributors, our staff and our shareholders”, said Henri de Castries,

Chairman and CEO of the AXA Group.
“With this transaction, we are selling to Resolution businesses, notably protection and group pensions, which will benefit from Resolution’s bigger scale in these activities. We will focus on our UK wealth management business where we are among the leaders and plan to continue to grow fast.”