By Eric Johnston
NATIONAL Australia Bank's efforts to acquire AXA Asia Pacific appear to have been bolstered after the wealth manager's chairman yesterday lined up with the bank by saying he disagreed with the competition regulator's decision to reject the $13.3 billion bid.
AXA AP chairman Rick Allert also suggested that NAB's efforts to try to win back support from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for its deal were gathering momentum.
Speaking after AXA AP's annual meeting, Mr Allert confirmed talks had taken place in recent weeks between AXA AP and NAB.
Critically, he said NAB was exploring the prospect of selling some AXA AP assets, suggesting the bank is prepared to offload some of the investment technology to satisfy competition hurdles.
After last month being rebuffed by the ACCC, NAB has so far kept its cards close to its chest, only willing to say it has been ''actively'' pursuing all options to secure the bid.
The rejection has broader implications because rival suitor AMP is considering whether to dust off its earlier takeover offer for AXA AP.
AXA SA, the French parent of AXA AP, has been keen to engineer a deal to offload the Australian business, allowing it to focus on Asia.
A three-way sales agreement between NAB, AXA SA and AXA AP is still in place, but from May 31 any of the parties has the option to walk away from the deal.
In a further sign that NAB has support, AXA SA said it believed a resolution could be found between the bank and the ACCC.
''The ACCC were very specific in their concerns and NAB was working very hard in addressing those concerns,'' AXA SA's regional executive, John Dacey, said.
Mr Allert confirmed that AXA AP had also held talks of its own with the ACCC, although he described this as part of an information-gathering exercise by the regulator.
Mr Allert said he was surprised the ACCC had knocked back NAB.
In its ruling in April, the ACCC said it was concerned that competition and innovation would be harmed if NAB and AXA AP combined their wealth platforms.
''We were surprised that they thought that was of sufficient merit to be anti-competitive,'' Mr Allert said of AXA AP's North wealth platform product, which remains at the heart of the ACCC's concerns.
Separately, Mr Allert revealed that he planned to retire from AXA AP after nearly 15 years as a director, including the past decade as chairman. But the takeover offers forced the AXA AP board to put succession plans on hold. Mr Allert was yesterday re-elected for another three-year term. But he said if no takeover deal was struck, succession planning would continue.