France’s Axa doubles 2021 profit, raises financial goals

PARIS (Reuters) -Axa reported a profit on Thursday that more than doubled from last year, with the French insurer recovering from pandemic-related claims during the peak of the COVID-19 crisis.

The company, Europe’s second-biggest insurer after Allianz, said it expected underlying earnings per share to grow at the high end of its 3% to 7% target range by 2023, and cumulative cash to exceed its 14-billion-euros target during 2021 to 2023.

Axa’s net income jumped to 7.29 billion euros in 2021 from 3.16 billion euros a year earlier, beating analysts’ estimates of 6.72 billion euros, according to Refinitiv IBES data.

Full-year revenue rose 3% to 99.93 billion euros, slightly below estimates of 99.98 billion euros.

(Reporting by Matthieu Protard; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Shounak Dasgupta)