BNP Paribas in talks to acquire Axa Investment Managers

The bottom line...via Bloomberg: "The purchase is the biggest yet for the BNP CEO, who until now shied away from big takeovers, deciding instead to return excess cash to shareholders after selling US lender Bank of the West for $16.3 billion last year. The proposed deal would allow BNP to challenge Europe's No. 1, Amundi SA, although it would still be dwarfed by US firms such as BlackRock Inc. or Vanguard Group Inc."