S&P Cuts AXA Financial Inc, Units Rtgs; Otlk Stable.Business Editors NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 12, 2003 Standard & Poor's Ratings Services Ratings Service A company, such as Moody's or Standard & Poor's, that rates various debt and preferred stock issues for safety of payment of principal, interest, or dividends. said today that it lowered its counterparty Counterparty The other participant, including intermediaries, in a swap or contract. credit rating on AXA AXA Anguilla, Anguilla (Airport Code) AXA Alpha Chi Alpha AXA Animal Crossing Ahead (online forum community/guide to the game Animal Crossing) AXA Auxiliary Artery Financial Inc. (AXF AXF Ascii Exchange Format ) to 'A' from 'A+' and lowered its counterparty credit and financial strength ratings on AXF subsidiaries Equitable Life Equitable Life may refer to:
The outlook is stable. "The ratings on AXA were lowered because of earnings, financial flexibility, and capitalization capitalization n. 1) the act of counting anticipated earnings and expenses as capital assets (property, equipment, fixtures) for accounting purposes. 2) the amount of anticipated net earnings which hypothetically can be used for conversion into capital assets. issues," explained Standard & Poor's credit analyst Thomas Upton. The details of those considerations were included in a media release issued by Standard & Poor's Paris office earlier today. On a standalone stand·a·lone adj. Self-contained and usually independently operating: a standalone computer terminal. basis, AXF has a strong position in the market for the sale of variable life and annuity products, a majority owned investment management affiliate with a strong market position of its own, Alliance Capital Management, L.P., a valuable brand in Equitable Life, and the financial flexibility resulting from its core position in AXA. In the past three years, management has executed important cost-cutting initiatives that have served to stabilize earnings despite the challenges of 2002. In process are further initiatives to broaden and enhance the life and annuity product line while improving the productivity of Equitable's retail sales force. Standard & Poor's expects stabilized premium growth per year for Equitable in high single digits. Also expected is the maintenance of extremely strong risk-based capital based on Standard & Poor's model for Equitable. Liquidity for Equitable will be maintained at a level that results in a ratio considered to be very strong based on Standard & Poor's liquidity model. Continued improvement in the productivity of the retail sales force is also expected. Complete ratings information is available to subscribers of RatingsDirect, Standard & Poor's Web-based credit analysis system, at www.ratingsdirect.com. All ratings affected by this rating action can be found on Standard & Poor's public Web site at www.standardandpoors.com; under Fixed Income in the left navigation bar A set of buttons or graphic images typically in a row or column used as a central point that link you to major topic sections on a Web site. If the navigation bar is a single graphic image with multiple selections, it is known as an imagemap. See imagemap. , select Credit Ratings Actions. Copyright 2003, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services |
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