AXA Asia-Pacific has signed up chief executive Les Owen for another two years after months of negotiations.

Owen's extended contract will exceed the deadline for the performance improvement proposals on which he has pinned his career.

The proposals aimed to change the nature of AXA's business in Australia since it bought National Mutual in 1995.

Mr Owen has set K5 targets to be achieved by next December.

Chairman Rick Allert denied yesterday that negotiations between the board and Owen had been acrimonious but he said they were delayed by busy schedules.

Allert said: "I don't mean to imply that negotiations were super tough, it is just that he has been working on some areas and I have been otherwise engaged over the past couple of weeks so it has been a logistics matter."

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