Insurer AXA's CEO goes, fuelling talk of HSBC role

PARIS (Reuters) - AXA Chief Executive Henri de Castries will step down in September after nearly 17 years at the top of Europe's second-largest insurer, fuelling speculation that his next role could be as HSBC chairman.

Castries, who joined Axa in 1989, has spent the past five years expanding the group's business into emerging markets with a 5.1 billion euro (£4 billion) acquisition spree in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

In a letter to staff announcing his departure, Castries, 61, said "it is only natural that a new team launches and manages our new strategic plan to be announced in June 2016."

Thomas Buberl, 42, who heads AXA's German business, has been appointed deputy chief executive and will take over from Castries when he leaves in September.

Castries' departure is the latest in a series of leadership changes at European insurers, with Prudential, Zurich, Old Mutual and Munich Re all announcing new chief executives in the past year.

Under a five-year strategic plan completed last year, Axa consolidated its position as Europe's second-biggest insurer after Germany's Allianz by trimming its exposure to mature markets and increasingly focusing on faster growing emerging markets where insurance coverage remains low.

Castries is seen as a front-runner to take over from Douglas Flint as HSBC chairman, having joined the bank's board last year. HSBC said last week that it had begun to look for a replacement for Flint and expected to nominate someone in 2017.

"I think Henri de Castries is quite likely to replace Flint, (I) have been hearing that for the last nine months," one HSBC shareholder told Reuters, on condition of anonymity.

"He is in a learning phase now and could step up next year".

HSBC said the bank did not comment on speculation.

De Castries tried to dampen the speculation, saying that people should not turn the timing of the announcement of management changes at AXA and HSBC into an "event".

AXA SPLITS TOP JOBS

Incoming CEO Buberl is expected to focus on shareholder returns and changes in digital technology, a London-based analyst said. Shares in AXA were up 1.1 percent at 1140 GMT.

The announcement of Buberl's elevation represents a generational shift at the insurer, where chief executives normally serve for at least 10 years.

But the move also retains some continuity of management. AXA said it will split the chairmanship role from that of chief executive. The current deputy CEO in charge of finance Denis Duverne, 62, will replace Castries as chairman

Buberl would be a rare foreign boss among leading French companies. He was born in the German town of Wuppertal and educated in Germany, Britain, and Switzerland.

Since joining AXA in 2012, he has headed the group's life and savings business as well as its health line. Previously he worked at the Winterthur group, which was acquired by AXA in 2006, and Zurich Insurance Group.

(Reporting by James Regan, Leigh Thomas, Maya Nikolaeva in Paris and Sinead Cruise in London; Editing by Andrew Callus and Keith Weir)