But as Bbar is the first to admit, it is not the most profitable.

FORBES: AXA aims at AIG

No one who knows Claude Bbar questions the drive and focus he brings to the bottom-line challenge.

FORBES: AXA aims at AIG

In 1957 he made the 23-year-old Bbar an unusual offer: Join the company to be its eventual president.

FORBES: AXA aims at AIG

But clearly there's room for much more growth if Bbar can make his assets sweat as much as Greenberg makes his.

FORBES: AXA aims at AIG

"Equitable was a huge gamble, and Bbar could have failed miserably, " says Philippe Foulquier, an analyst who follows axa for Crdit Lyonnais Securities in Paris.

FORBES: AXA aims at AIG

But Bbar saw that outside France, uap complemented axa. axa was strong in the U.S. and Asia, whereas uap was strong in Germany, the U.K. and Belgium.

FORBES: AXA aims at AIG

Bbar worked in various divisions of the company, including a stint in Canada, where he developed an appreciation for such Anglo-Saxon ideas as transparent accounting and shareholder value.

FORBES: AXA aims at AIG

Bbar didn't waffle: He threatened to call in riot police.

FORBES: AXA aims at AIG

In 1982 Bbar bought big-but-ailing French insurer Groupe Drouot.

FORBES: AXA aims at AIG

Pacing about his sumptuous Paris office decorated with hunting rifles, mounted antelope heads, hippopotamus teeth and other big game trophies, Claude Bbar talks about a kind of quarry that has so far eluded him: superior profitability.

FORBES: AXA aims at AIG