AXA and BNP Paribas to Renew Their 2005 Agreement

PARIS, Aug. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Consistent with their long-standing relationship over many years through various industrial projects, BNP Paribas and AXA have reaffirmed the desire of the two Groups to pursue their partnership by renewing the current agreement between them dated December 15, 2005.

In this context, BNP Paribas and AXA confirm that, on August 5, 2010, they concluded a new agreement for a period of 3 years which will automatically renew for successive one year periods thereafter.

This new agreement includes the principal terms of the 2005 agreement. However, in order to take into account anticipated regulatory developments for financial institutions, BNP Paribas and AXA have not extended their respective commitments to maintain minimum cross shareholding participations, even though they currently do not contemplate unwinding them.  

About AXA

AXA Group is a worldwide leader in insurance and asset management, with 216.000 employees serving 96 million clients in 57 countries. For 1H10, IFRS revenues amounted to Euro 49.9 billion and IFRS underlying earnings to Euro 2.1 billion. AXA had Euro 1,089 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2010.

The AXA ordinary share is listed on compartment A of Euronext Paris under the ticker symbol CS (ISIN FR0000120628 – Bloomberg: CS FP – Reuters: AXAF.PA). AXA's American Depository Shares are also quoted on the OTC QX platform under the ticker symbol AXAHY.

The Group is included in the three main international SRI indexes: Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), FTSE4GOOD and Advanced Sustainability Performance Indices (Aspi Eurozone).

This press release is available on the AXA Group website: www.axa.com

IMPORTANT LEGAL INFORMATION AND CAUTIONARY STATEMENTS CONCERNING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements contained herein are forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, statements that are predictions of or indicate future events, trends, plans or objectives. Undue reliance should not be placed on such statements because, by their nature, they are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the section "Cautionary statements" in page 2 of AXA's Document de Reference for the year ended December 31, 2009, for a description of certain important factors, risks and uncertainties that may affect AXA's business. AXA undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any of these forward-looking statements, whether to reflect new information, future events or circumstances or otherwise.

SOURCE AXA Group