U.S. Arm of Insurer AXA Seeking to Raise $4 Billion in IPO
April 20 2018 - 5:48PM
Dow Jones News
By Maureen Farrell
AXA Equitable Holdings Inc., the U.S. arm of the French insurer
AXA SA, plans to begin showcasing itself to investors next week for
what would be the biggest U.S.-listed IPO of the year so far,
measured by amount of money raised.
AXA Equitable Holdings is planning to set an initial price range
for its IPO early next week, people familiar with the process said.
It hopes to raise roughly $4 billion and will seek a valuation of
roughly $12 billion in the offering, the people said. The company
is expected to start trading in the first week of May.
AXA Equitable Holdings is one of America's oldest life insurers,
founded in 1859 in New York, and was long known as Equitable Life
Assurance Society of the U.S. AXA acquired it in 1992.
Some of the proceeds of the IPO will be used by AXA Equitable
Holdings' parent company to help finance its $15.3 billion purchase
of XL Group Ltd. AXA announced its plans to buy XL in early
March.
After announcing the XL deal, Paris-based AXA said it would
accelerate existing plans to split off its large U.S.
life-insurance business in a public offering. That division owns a
majority stake in AllianceBernstein, a money manager that has
struggled recently against competition from cheaper index
funds.
Ahead of the deal, AXA was planning to raise less in the IPO of
its U.S. arm -- roughly $2.5 billion -- but decided to increase its
target for proceeds to help finance the deal, one of the people
said.
So far this year, Brazilian financial technology company
PagSeguro Digital Ltd., which raised $2.6 billion, is the largest
U.S. IPO by deal value, according to Dealogic.
--Leslie Scism contributed to this article.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 20, 2018 17:33 ET (21:33 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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