AXA, India’s Bharti to Form P/C Group

Following the successful launch of their joint venture life insurance operations, France’s AXA Group and India’s Bharti Enterprises have signed a preliminary agreement to establish a joint Indian P/C insurer.

Bharti will have a 74 percent stake, with AXA holding the remaining 26 percent. The two hope to receive early approval from Indian regulators and to have the new Company up and running by the second half of 2007.

The new venture follows the two group’s successful cooperation in launching a joint venture life insurer, Bharti AXA Life. Originally operating in Hyderabad and Mumbai, the Company recently expanded into Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta), Chennai and Bangalore.

That expansion prompted the following remarks from AXA CEO Henri De Castries: “We are truly excited about the Indian opportunity and believe that the partnership with Bharti will create significant value for the group in Asia. There has been a great meeting of minds on ways to harness the Indian opportunity and our global experience, technical expertise combined with Bharti’s distribution capabilities and local market knowledge will help us create scale which is so important for this market.”