Insurance business growth pushes Axa’s revenue past €100bn

Axa’s revenues passed €100bn for the first time in 2016, as growth in its insurance businesses offset a more difficult year in asset management.

The French insurer on Thursday reported 2016 revenues of €100.2bn, a 2 per cent increase on the previous year.

Underlying earnings grew by 3 per cent to €5.7bn, which is at the lower end of the 3 to 7 per cent target range that Axa set out at an investor day last June but above the growth rate reported at the half year stage.

The insurer said that its solvency ratio (a measure of capital available as a proportion of the minimum required) was 197 per cent at the end of December, up 6 percentage points on the position three months earlier. It also declared a 5 per cent increase in the dividend.

Thomas Buberl, who became chief executive of Axa last year, said: “With the commitment and the engagement of our teams, we have delivered a strong performance in the first year of our new Ambition 2020 plan”.