Earnings Call Excerpt
AXA (AXA)
FY 2008 Earnings Call Transcript
February 19, 2009 at 8:30 am ET
Executives
Henri de Castries - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Denis Duverne - Chief Financial Officer
Gerald Harlin - Deputy Chief Financial Officer
Analysts
Blair Stewart - Merrill Lynch
Mark Teeler - UBS.
Nick Holmes - [Lehman Brothers]
Ralph Hebgen - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods
Farooq Hanif - Morgan Stanley
Ralph Hebgen - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods
Duncan Russell - JP Morgan
Unidentified Analyst
Rob Haim - JPMorgan
Tony Silverman – Standard & Poor’s Equity Research
Emmanuelle Cales - SocGen
Andrew Ritchie - Citadel
Andrew Crean - Citi
Mike Broom - Fox-Pitt
Thomas Jacquet - Exane
Presentation
Operator
So, good afternoon everybody. We are very pleased to welcome you at AXA UK for the earnings release for the full year 2008 earnings release. Presenting today will be Henri de Castries CEO, Denis Duverne CFO, and, Gerald Harlin deputy CFO. Henri, the floor is yours.
Henri de Castries
Thank you Etienne. Good afternoon, everybody. We know these are challenging times. We know you all have a lot of questions but I think we should be respectful for the ones who are listening to this conference through the web and we will go through the presentation extensively but swiftly to make sure we leave as much room as possible for all your questions afterwards.
So, where do we stand and what are today's key messages and I fully understand that in these very turbulent times, sometimes it's difficult to get the messages listened to but we will try with Denis and Gerald to have you find the answers you are looking for.
Two things, more than two things in 2008. First it absolutely clear to all of us that this was the year of extreme pressure, and in this year of extreme pressure, of course we have not been immune. There are parts of the Company where we have suffered but overall if you look at the earnings performance I think we have resisted quite well to the turmoil and the earnings which are coming out today are very much aligned with what we have told you in November.
Four billion of underlying earnings is less than what we had hoped for, of course at the beginning of the year but if you step back and look at what the historical sequence has been, it's back to the level of 2006 which was the second best year ever for AXA.
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