AMP, AXA SA launch $13.1 billion bid for AXA Asia Pacific

MELBOURNE/SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian wealth manager AMP and French insurer AXA SA launched a new $13.1 billion-plus (8.1 billion pound plus) bid for AXA Asia Pacific, a move set to challenge banks’ domination of the world’s fourth-largest wealth market down under.

A deal would put AMP at the top of Australia’s $1.2 trillion wealth management market, and end one of Asia’s largest takeovers that has dragged on for a year.

It would also allow AXA SA to exit Australia and help it to focus on its stated goal of growing in Asia, where businesses in eight countries contributed 60 percent of its operating earnings in the first half of 2010.