RSS feedsClaude Bébéar, the outgoing Axa chairman and one of France's most influential capitalists, has said accounting rules requiring companies to value assets at market prices has contributed financial volatility.
The Financial Times reports that Axa chief executive Henri de Castries also criticised the rules and branded the mark-to-market method as a 'conceptual mistake'.
The accounting treatments had created accounting losses that were not economic losses, de Castries claimed, resulting in many current write-downs being reversed in a few years.
'The accounting systems in the economy are the thermometer, and I'm not sure their measurement scale is the right one today,' he said.
The two Axa board members were speaking as the company reported a 27% increase in operating profits for 2007 to €5bn (£3.83bn). The strong performance was tainted, however, by a €600m write-down on marked-to-market assets.
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