PARIS (Reuters) – Axa suffered the biggest drop in the CAC 40 on Friday, penalized by concerns about the cost of recent natural disasters which overshadowed a publication of nine-month turnover considered generally positive.
At 1:28 p.m., the French insurer’s shares fell 1.77% to 28.015 euros, after having lost up to 4.4% earlier in the session.
The French insurer reported on Thursday evening a turnover (gross written premiums and other income) in line with expectations for the first nine months of the year and said it was on track to achieve its profit target for the year.
However, he warned of a high level of losses linked to natural disasters in the third quarter and estimated the preliminary amount of damage caused by Hurricane Otis, which hit Mexico in October, at 200 million euros.
“This loss due to Hurricane Otis could worry some but it is manageable on a group scale,” BofA Global Research analysts commented in a note.
However, during a conference with analysts, Axa management was even more cautious about the loss experience linked to natural disasters after the passage of storm Ciaran over Western Europe.
“We are facing a storm in Europe, both in France, the UK and now Italy. We have to see how this plays out,” said finance director Alban de Mailly Nesle.
Based on these comments, AlphaValue analysts now expect a greater impact from natural disasters for 2023, with the “fairly pessimistic” tone suggesting that initial expectations “may have been underestimated.”
The European insurance sector as a whole suffers and loses 0.83%.
(Written by Blandine Hénault, with Nathan Vifflin in Gdansk and Mathieu Rosemain, edited by Kate Entringer)
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