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AXA announces its 2027-2029 strategy and financial targets

September 15, 2026

published at 7:00 AM CEST

  • AXA aims to leverage its industry‑leading margins, strong balance sheet and well‑diversified multi‑line model to drive market share gains and sustained earnings growth
  • The new plan will focus on accelerating customer-driven organic growth at attractive margins, and scaling AI to deepen our competitive moat
  • AXA increases its ambition with four main financial targets for the 2027-2029 plan period:
    - Underlying earnings per share1 CAGR2 2026E-2029E between 7% and 9%
    - Underlying return on equity1 between 15% and 17% over 2027E to 2029E
    - Mid-teens CAGR in book value per share1,3, inclusive of cumulative dividends, over 2026 to 2029E
    - Circa. Euro 25 billion cumulative organic cash upstream over 2027E to 2029E
  • Attractive capital management policy4 with a total payout ratio5 target of 75%
  • For 2026, AXA expects underlying earnings per share growth to be at the top end of the target range of 6-8%6 and underlying ROE at the top end of the target range of 14% to 16%6

Thomas Buberl

Chief Executive Officer of AXA

With our new plan, “Growing Forward”, we will build the AXA of the next decade, driven by a clear ambition: to become the insurer best positioned to meet our customers’ growing protection needs and address the emergence of new risks, and thus organically grow our market share across our geographies and lines of business.

“Growing Forward” will build on the transformation carried out in recent years to create a simpler, stronger AXA, fully focused on its core insurance business. This model positions us well to withstand a volatile environment and deliver consistent performance across market cycles.

In the current plan, “Unlock the Future”, AXA has demonstrated its ability to grow across all geographies and business lines, thanks to rigorous execution, a stronger focus on customer satisfaction that has reached record levels, and its ability to innovate to meet new protection needs. Today, all our geographies and all our businesses are in good shape and delivering excellent performance.

AXA benefits from decisive strengths: strong diversification across both its businesses and distribution channels, significant scale across all geographies and market segments, a strong brand, superior technical expertise, and a strong balance sheet.

“Growing Forward” aims to accelerate this trajectory with a stronger growth ambition to capture additional market share, earn the trust of new customers, and deepen the loyalty of our existing customers. To support this ambition, we will continue to enhance our competitiveness through disciplined underwriting and portfolio management, as well as strong cost control. This ambition leads us to raise all our financial targets while maintaining an attractive total payout ratio of 75%.

With this plan, we will also accelerate the deployment of artificial intelligence across the value chain, to improve our underwriting, efficiency, and customer service quality. We will continue the progress made in recent years, leveraging our data, tools, and technology infrastructure, the talent, expertise and engagement of our teams, and a world-class ecosystem of technology partners.

We also want to continue improving our response to the major challenges facing insurance: new technological risks, adaptation to climate change, rising healthcare costs, and the ageing of our societies. To keep risks insurable, we will make prevention core to our offers and services. This is in line with our DNA of social and environmental commitment and is our response to rising expectations of our customers for these solutions.

With “Growing Forward”, we are building the AXA of tomorrow: a high-performing and competitive AXA, an innovative AXA that listens to its customers’ needs, an AXA that contributes to a more resilient and inclusive society. We are confident we can deliver consistent earnings growth and create long-term value for our shareholders.

In this next chapter, we count on the continued commitment of our talented people and agents, and we will continue to invest in our workforce to foster the entrepreneurial mindset that is deeply rooted in AXA’s culture.

An investor presentation will be held on September 15, 2026, at 10:30 am Paris time and will include a Q&A session for analysts and investors. A press conference will also be held at 8:30 am Paris time on the same day.

1. “Underlying earnings”, “underlying earnings per share”, “underlying return on equity”, “combined ratio” and “book value per share” are non-Gaap financial measures defined as Alternative Performance Measures (“APMs”) in ESMA’s guidelines and the AMF’s related position statement issued in 2015. As “book value per share” is a new APM for AXA, the definition, calculation methodology and comparative information are provided in slide 152 contained in “Growing Forward” Investor presentation available on AXA’s website (www.axa.com). AXA provides a reconciliation of the other APMs to the most closely related line item, subtotal, or total in the financial statements of the corresponding period (and/or their calculation methodology, as applicable) in its Financial Report as of June 30, 2026 (“AXA’s Half-year 2026 Financial Report”), on the pages indicated under the heading “Alternative Performance Measures”. For further information on the above-mentioned and other non-GAAP financial measures used in this press release, see the Glossary in AXA’s Half-year 2026 Financial Report. AXA’s Half-year 2026 Financial Report is available on AXA’s website (www.axa.com).
2. Compounded Annual Growth Rate; period-to-period results may vary.
3. “Book value per share” represents shareholders’ equity excluding other comprehensive income as well as undated and deeply subordinated debt divided by the actual number of outstanding shares (excluding treasury shares) at that date. Book value per share CAGR includes cumulative dividends per share and excludes CTA (Currency Translation Adjustment) movements from year end 2026 onward.
4. This capital management policy represents the current intention of the Board of Directors and is subject to the absence of any significant earnings or capital event. The annual implementation of the policy remains subject to the approval of the Board of Directors and AXA’s shareholders at the Annual Shareholders’ meeting. In exercising its discretion, the Board of Directors is expected to consider AXA’s earnings, financial condition, applicable capital and solvency requirements, prevailing operating and financial market conditions and the general economic and political environment.
5. Payout ratio is based on underlying earnings per share.
6. This one-off guidance reflects AXA’s current expectations based on year-to-date performance and its current forecasts for the remainder of 2026, including normalized Nat Cat load. It assumes no significant deterioration in current operating, pricing and market conditions. For more details on expected 2026 underlying earnings, please refer to slides 79 to 81 contained in “Growing Forward” Investor presentation available on AXA’s website (www.axa.com).

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