I'm pretty sure there's more here than meets the eye - they...

I'm pretty sure there's more here than meets the eye - they bought quite a lot in the last 4 months to get over 5%, and their share is worth almost $250M. These disposals listed on transactions report don't look like real shorting action, but more like suspicious sells to keep the price under control.

With this being announced after close on Friday we'll see how it will affect the trading on Monday. I reckon there will be quite a few speculations on why is AXA increasing their stake now, but someone buying to 5% share and not being a shorter should be viewed as very positive news.

My long shot is that BOQ+Suncorp merger could be on the table again, and that AXA is actually taking a good starting position to snatch Suncorp's insurance arm, which would probably need to be spun off if banks merge. Though I'm not sure if this is realistic scenario e.g. if their deal with AMP few years back had some constraints on when can AXA get back to the Australian insurance market.