Bharti

Bharti decides to exit from its Financial Services JVs with AXA

To sell its entire interest in Life and General insurance JVs to Reliance Industries Ltd.
Intends to focus on businesses where it is making a deeper impact both in India and overseas .

New Delhi, June 10, 2011: : Bharti Enterprises today announced its decision to sell its entire interest in its two joint ventures with AXA, both Life and General Insurance, to Reliance Industries Ltd., India’s leading business conglomerate. This sale is subject to necessary approvals from IRDA, Competition commission of India and any other relevant/applicable authorities.

The decision is in line with Bharti's strategy of focusing its energies and financial resources in businesses where it is making a deeper impact both in India and overseas. Currently, the financial services ventures do not fit into Bharti’s long term growth plans. Bharti intends to use the proceeds from selling off its interests in these joint ventures towards other group businesses in India and abroad.

Bharti had entered into these joint ventures with the AXA Group in 2006 and held 74% stake in both these ventures – Bharti AXA Life Insurance and Bharti AXA General Insurance. Bharti is already in the process of offloading its stake in its JV with AXA for asset management.

About Bharti Enterprises: Bharti Enterprises is one of India’s leading business groups with interests in telecom, agri business, retail and manufacturing. Bharti has been a pioneering force in the telecom sector with many firsts and innovations to its credit. Bharti Airtel, a group company, is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries across Asia and Africa. The company offers mobile voice & data services, fixed line, high speed broadband, IPTV, DTH, turnkey telecom solutions for enterprises and national & international long distance services to carriers. Beetel Teletech is the country’s largest manufacturer and exporter of telephone terminals. Bharti has a joint venture –FieldFresh Foods – with Del Monte Pacific Ltd, to offer fresh and processed fruits and vegetables in the domestic as well as international markets. Bharti has forayed into retail business under a company called Bharti Retail. It also has a joint venture - Bharti Wal-Mart - with Wal-Mart for wholesale cash-and-carry and back-end supply chain management operations in India.

About AXA

The AXA Group is a worldwide leader in insurance and asset management, with 214,000 employees serving 95 million clients. In 2010, IFRS revenues amounted to Euro 91 billion and IFRS underlying earnings to Euro 3.9 billion. AXA had Euro 1,104 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2010.

The AXA ordinary share is listed on compartment A of Euronext Paris under the ticker symbol CS (ISN FR 0000120628 – Bloomberg: CS FP – Reuters: AXAF.PA). AXA’s American Depository Shares are also quoted on the OTC QX platform under the ticker symbol AXAHY.

The AXA Group is included in the main international SRI indexes, such as Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) and FTSE4GOOD.

This press release is available on the AXA Group website: www.axa.com