The current stock market situation isn't a determinant of French insurer AXA SA's (AXA) decisions about whether or not to make corporate acquisitions, the company's chief executive said Wednesday.

Henri de Castries repeated to an analyst meeting that the company's acquisition policy remains to make opportunistic purchases of businesses that fit the strategic and core profile of the company.

The executive said that AXA at this time prefers to attract clients away from what he termed distressed companies, who are losing client confidence because of their financial state.

He said it is less expensive to pull clients in from competitors than to make acquisitions that burden the balance sheet.

Company web site; www.axa.com

-By A.H. Mooradian, Dow Jones Newswires; art.mooradian@dowjones.com.