AXA Shares Rise on EUR1 Billion Buyback, 1st Half Beating Expectations
August 03 2022 - 5:37AM
Dow Jones News
By Ed Frankl
Shares in AXA SA rose on Wednesday as it launched a share
buyback after beating expectations at its first-half results.
At 0850 GMT, shares were up 4.8% to EUR23.25
The buyback, worth up to 1 billion euros ($1.02 billion), would
launch as soon as is "reasonably practicable", based on market
conditions, the French insurer said.
It comes after EUR2.2 billion worth of shares were bought in the
year to date.
The Paris-based company reported first-half profit of EUR4.11
billion with revenue at EUR55.14 billion, beating expectations of
EUR3.37 billion and EUR54.61 billion, respectively, according to
analysts' consensus provided by the company.
The company shrugged off a pretax hit of around EUR300 million
net of reinsurance from the war in Ukraine, within previous
expectations of it being similar to a midsized catastrophe
event.
The share-buyback announcement came earlier than anticipated,
UBS analysts said in a note, with the bank having expected the
current macroeconomic environment to make this more likely a
year-end possibility.
The buyback program, which is due to complete by February 2023,
should likely lead to investors placing a lower cost of equity on
the stock, UBS said.
Write to Ed Frankl at edward.frankl@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 03, 2022 05:22 ET (09:22 GMT)
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