AXA acknowledges 2008 is a tough year
AXA Asia Pacific’s bottom line has taken a hit in the March quarter as result of recent market volatility, but it has managed to keep gross inflows in positive territory.
AXA group chief executive Andrew Penn acknowledged that the company had experienced a challenging start to 2008 with its total Australian wealth management inflows down 2 per cent to $2.4 billion, but pointed out that net flows had remained positive at $845.5 million, albeit down 30 per cent on the previous year.
He said including AllianceBernstein, gross inflows had been up 6 per cent and net inflows down 33 per cent.
Penn said total group funds under management, administration and advice were down 10 per cent to $98.1 billion, reflecting the first quarter reductions in the S&P/ASX 300 and MSCI world excluding Australian accumulation indices of 14.6 per cent and 12.4 per cent respectively.
“As I foreshadowed at our annual general meeting last week, the current investment market volatility clearly has implications for the short-term operating metrics across the industry, including operating earnings, investment earnings, sales and discontinuances,” he said.
“[It is] going to be a tough year, and at this stage it is difficult to predict when markets may improve,” Penn said. “That is why it is important to have built a strong and resilient business, which I believe we have.”
Looking at the performance of individual divisions in the quarter, AXA reported that gross platform inflows were down 11 per cent to $486.6 million and advice inflows were down 13 per cent to $257.9 million, while investment gross inflows were up 3 per cent to $1.64 billion due to strong ipac institutional inflows.
The performance of the company’s insurance divisions remained healthy, with new Australian financial protection business up 7 per cent to $21 million, new individual life business up 22 per cent to $12.3 million and new individual income protection business up 8 per cent to $5.5 million.
New group risk business was down 29 per cent to $3.2 million.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
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