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PARIS | Fri Feb 19, 2010 7:12am GMT

PARIS (Reuters) - French investment bank Natixis (CNAT.PA), recovering from a series of quarterly losses that provoked funding worries, on Friday said it was in talks with AXA (AXAF.PA) to sell its private equity business in France.

Natixis said it could sell these activities for 507 million euros ($687.2 million) to AXA Private Equity and could obtain a premium to the value depending on performance. The IFRS value of the assets was 543 million at end 2009

Natixis and AXA would raise fresh funds for the activities and the management teams remained in place.

AXA and Natixis have signed an exclusivity agreement for the talks for a month.

Share trading in Natixis unit Initiative & Finance Investissement has been suspended.

Natixis is 72 percent owned by France's second-biggest retail bank BPCE.

(Reporting by Marcel Michelson; Editing by Erica Billingham)
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