AXA history

Business boomed during the Civil War, as the ravages of armed conflict impressed upon many the wisdom of insuring their lives. It had an agent in Southeast Asia as early as 1860, and over the next two decades it established its presence elsewhere in the Far East, in Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Canada.

In 1865, the last year of the war, the firm had $27.6 million worth of coverage in force.

William Alexander died in 1874 and was succeeded by Henry Baldwin Hyde.

At this very moment La Providence was merging with Le Secours, another insurance company established in 1880.

In 1881 under the management of Masselin, both companies merged under the name of Ancienne Mutuelle and the new life entity, Mutuelle Vie, came into being.

Business continued to skyrocket during Hyde's active stewardship, and in 1886 Equitable surpassed Mutual to become the largest life insurance company in the world.

In 1902, all of the offices were gathered in Rouen.

He found a buyer in financier Thomas Ryan, who persuaded the directors to elect his associate Paul Morton, who had been secretary of the navy under Theodore Roosevelt, as chairman. It started in January 1905, when James Hyde threw a lavish coming-out party for his niece.

The influenza epidemic of 1918, however, cost the firm about $8 million in death claims.

The process was a drawn-out one, but by 1925 the firm was selling only a few policies outside the United States.

In 1929 the firm booked more than $1 billion worth of new policies and had $6.8 billion worth of coverage in force.

Among the latter was the Ancienne Mutuelle Transport de Bétail, created in 1939 in order to insure rail transport of livestock.

In 1942 the firm took its first plunge into large-scale housing development, building a series of apartment complexes in Brooklyn.

The arrival in 1946 of André Sahut d’Izarn will mark the beginning of a revival.

1955 – The roots of international growth

In 1968 Equitable pledged $60 million to an industry-wide drive to finance the rehabilitation of housing units in urban slums.

Oates retired in 1969 and was succeeded by J. Henry Smith, who had first given thought to entering the insurance business during his senior year in college, after chatting with an Equitable salesman who had sold a policy to his father.

The death of chairman André Sahut d'Izarn in June 1972 may have been a contributing factor.

In 1973 it acquired Informatics, a California-based computer systems company.

In April 1974, the longest strike known in insurance history began.

A minor controversy swirled around the firm in 1975 when the Department of Justice filed a conflict-of-interest suit against Eklund over his directorship of Chase Manhattan Bank, out of concern that he might be tempted to give Chase Manhattan preferential treatment in investing Equitable premiums.

In 1976 Equitable joined with Newmont Mining Company, The Williams Companies, Fluor Corporation, and Bechtel to form a consortium that bought Peabody Coal Company from Kennecott Copper.

Ancienne Mutuelle’s name would remain unchanged until 1977.

Eklund finally resolved the dispute in 1978 when he announced that he would not seek re-election to his bank post.

In 1980 it sold Houston General Insurance to Japanese giant Tokio Marine and Fire; it also sold its Toronto-based subsidiary Heritage Life Assurance to Unicorp Financial, a Canadian insurance holding company.

In 1981 it sold Equitable General Insurance to GEICO Corporation.

In 1982 it bought Equitable Life Mortgage Realty Trust, the real estate investment trust (REIT) that it managed.

Equitable's real estate development activity was given additional impetus by a 1983 change in New York state insurance law allowing insurance companies to engage in almost any financial service other than banking.

In 1984 it bought 19 shopping centers from Iowa-based General Growth Properties.

In July 1985, the group is officially named AXA, more commonly known "group Bébéar." Its president became CEO, quitting the operational department.

In April 1986, AXA purchased the company Présence made up of the companies Providence and Secours The latter, then newly merged, operated respectively in life and non life insurance, owning a large network in Europe and France.

In 1987 the firm sold Equitable Life Leasing to mortgage banker Lomas & Nettleton.

In the French insurance world, Béb&eacute was known as the cowboy of insurance, also described by le Nouvel Economiste, October 21, 1988, as the "avant-garde insurer" and elected by his peers in 1988 as Manager of the Year.

In February 1989 AXA could boast 42 companies around the world, 4,000 general agents, 16,000 employees, and a turnover of FFr45 million.

In December 1990, Equitable announced its intention to proceed with the development of a plan to demutualize.

This occurred after the failure of AXA to buy Farmers in 1990. It was in 1991 that the French insurer set foot there by acquiring a majority stake in American The Equitable, just after its demutualization.

In 1992 they completed the largest initial public offering to date in New York with AXA becoming their largest shareholder.

In 1993 the introduction of the employee dividend and reinvestment and stock purchase plan was introduced.

By 1994 the company’s assets under management totaled nearly $175 billion.

Another milestone which occurred in 1995 was that the chairmen and CEO of Equitable Insurance and AXA was awarded the person of the year award from the French American Chamber of Commerce.

It also acquired Union des Assurances De Paris in 1996 and was known as AXA-UAP.

The Equitable was then a major life insurer that AXA recapitalized and renamed AXA Equitable in 1997.

In 1999, National Mutual changed its name to AXA Asia Pacific.

In 2000 AXA purchased Outstanding Minority Interests which was the parent company of AXA Equitable Life Insurance.

2002 – Banking division grows

opening of an entity in Canton (2004)

establishment of AXA Tech in India (2005)

In 2006 the Council on Foundations provided AXA Insurance with the recognition of the best practices model for their diversity programs.

Since its establishment in 2007, the Fund has financed 367 academic research projects in 27 countries across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

AXA also established AXA Research Fund in 2008 with 100 million euros.

On April 29, 2010, the shareholders of AXA ratified the decision to change AXA’s form of governance by forming a board of directors.

The group announced in early June 2011 its withdrawal from the Canadian market with the sale of its subsidiary company AXA Canada to Intact Financial for 2.7 billion USD.

2012 – AXA partners with HSBC