AXA is a French multinational insurance firm headquartered in the 8th arrondissement of Paris that engages in global insurance, investment management, and other financial services. The AXA Group operates primarily in Western Europe, North America, the Asia Pacific region, and the Middle East, with presence also in Africa. AXA is a conglomerate of independently run businesses, operated according to the laws and regulations of many different countries. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.
The company was originally founded in 1816 as Mutuelle de L'assurance contre L'incendie (the Ancienne Mutuelle). It acquired Compagnie Parisienne de Garantie in 1978 and became Mutuelles Unies. It went on to buy the Drouot Group in 1982, becoming Mutuelles Unies/Drouot. It adopted the AXA name in 1985. The takeover of the American insurance company The Equitable, came in 1991. It bought Union des Assurances De Paris (UAP), France's largest insurer, in 1996 becoming AXA-UAP for a while before reverting to the name AXA in 1999. Then in February 1999 AXA acquired Guardian Royal Exchange. In May 2000 AXA acquired all shares it did not already own in Sun Life & Provincial Holdings. On 14 June 2006 AXA acquired the leading Swiss insurance company Winterthur Group from Credit Suisse for approximately €9 billion.
Axa was the title of a newspaper comic strip featuring the eponymous lead character, which was published in British daily tabloid The Sun from 1978 to 1986. It was written by Donne Avenell and drawn by Romero.
Commissioned by The Sun in 1978, the series was designed as a daily three-panel adventure strip. The Sun abruptly cancelled the strip midway through a story in 1986.
Romero created 2238 strips in black/white before the comic was cancelled. The last strip published in The Sun was number 2234. It was published on November 16, 1985 (according to the Ken Pierce re-production of the Axa comic in book #9). Romero also produced a long story in full color which was published in the Spanish magazine Creepy #52-59 in 1983-1984.
Romero returned to draw his previous series, Modesty Blaise, but also took Axa to the American company Eclipse Comics, who published a two issue series of new adventures, though this time with much less nudity and Chuck Dixon as writer. Another comic book version of Axa was later produced for the Swedish comic magazine Magnum. All the strips from The Sun have been reprinted in trade paperback format by Ken Pierce Books.
AXA may refer to:
Well I met the man who killed my mother
He put holes inside her arms
No they were not marks of stigmata lord
Just a drug pumping empty heart
Well I met the man who took my father
Put him in jail and locked him away
Well they say he forgot his children lord
He might remember us again someday
I blame the devil
Well I met the man who killed my grandmother
He took her mind as the shotgun blew
A year later my grandfather followed her
He’d had enough and shot himself too
Well I met the man who took my good friend
Oh, but he was only seventeen
I saw him laying in a cushioned coffin lord
It wasn’t him staring back at me
I blame the devil, what else could it be
I blame Jesus he ain't answering me
Don’t call me depressed, don’t call me sad
I’m giving up on this life I had
Well I met the man who raped my childhood
Oh well we were never young it’s true
But when everyone around you keeps dying lord
What the hell are we supposed to do
Well I met the man who took my sister
In a new family she will stay
And it’s true that my mother’s a sinner lord
She let another family fade away
I blame the devil, what else could it be
I blame Jesus he ain't answering me
Don’t call me depressed, don’t call me sad