Bharti AXA Life Insurance eyes among top five positions

New Delhi, Jan 15: Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company Ltd today said it targets to be among top five players in the next five years, and will launch various products along with expanding its branches by more than three fold by next fiscal.

''We aim to be among top five player in the industry by 2012, against our current position of 13 this year after a year of operation in India,'' company Chief Executive Officer Nitin Chopra told reporters on the sidelines of a conference here. Its rank stood at 16th last year, he said. The firm, a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and French financial services firm AXA, has 77 branches in 66 cities across the country.

In this JV, Bharti holds 74 per cent stake, while the rest is with the French firm.

''We are focussing on the Tier II and Tier III cities, which have a larger chunk of population, and plans to increase our branches to more than 250 by the end of next fiscal,'' Mr Chopra added.

''The capital is no constraint for our company,'' he said without divulging further details.

The company today unveiled a market-linked pension scheme and plans to launch a health insurance product in the next fiscal.

''We are working on other products, including rural and social products, and will continue to launch different products to capture the position among top five,'' Mr Chopra added.

UNI