'Crocodile Claude' runs business with bite

Claude Bebear, chief executive of AXA, which now owns National Mutual, sounds a bit like a New Zealander in a beret.

Known as "Crocodile Claude" by his colleagues, the Frenchman's two favourite sports are rugby and hunting.

Visitors to AXA in France say Bebear's office has so many stuffed heads mounted on the wall that it looks more like a taxidermist's than the working environment of a manager who built the world's biggest insurance company from an obscure provincial insurer called Ancienne Mutuelle, which was ranked just 17th in France.

Today, AXA collects more than $100 billion a year in premiums.

With apologies to National Mutual, the internationally minded Bebear created AXA by snapping up dogs and then tidying them up.

When AXA took control of American giant Equitable, the silver-haired Bebear cut back-office staff by 1700 - 5900 to 4200 - and sold the executives' fleet of limousines (aren't Americans so lavish?), among other economies. Corporate expenses dropped in six years by 21 per cent of revenue to 10 per cent.

AXA, by the way, doesn't mean anything. Bebear, who once took 200 managers camping by the Great Wall of China, chose the new name because it meant the same - or, more precisely, nothing - in every country.

* Contributing writer Selwyn Parker is available at wordz@xtra.co.nz

* This is the last Management page for this year. Management will resume on January 19.