AXA fund arm to shift 34 bln euros in assets to Aviva Investors

LONDON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - AXA Investment Managers said on Wednesday it expected to transfer 34 billion euros ($36.95 billion) in assets it currently manages on behalf of Friends Life to Aviva Investors by the end of the year.

The statement followed one from British insurer Aviva (Amsterdam: AW8.AS - news) in which it said it planned to move some of the funds currently run by AXA (Paris: FR0000120628 - news) in-house, following a review of its operations after buying Friends Life (Other OTC: RSLLF - news) earlier this year.

"From the outset, Aviva (Other OTC: AIVAF - news) made it clear that the acquisition offers the opportunity to increase Aviva Investors' AUM (assets under management) by recapturing previously outsourced asset management contracts," AXA said in a statement.

AXA said the withdrawal would likely have a "limited negative impact" on AXA IM's underlying earnings for 2016, and that it would receive a one-off withdrawal fee, which will be accounted for in its net income.

"Given this move by Aviva, we now anticipate that, over a period of time, some of the remaining assets that we manage on behalf of Friends Life may also be removed." ($1 = 0.9201 euros) (Reporting by Simon Jessop; editing by Carolyn Cohn)