LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) - European stocks fell on Thursday as a drop in the shares of major financial companies such as Aegon and Credit Agricole weighed on the region's markets.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index declined by 0.7 percent, while the euro zone's blue-chip Euro STOXX 50 index fell 0.6 percent.
Aegon was one of the worst-performing stocks in the region, slumping 7.8 percent after the Dutch insurer reported worse-than-expected first-quarter underlying pretax profit of 462 million euros ($527.19 million).
Credit Agricole also fell 3.6 percent after the French bank reported a 71 percent fall in first-quarter net income.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index is down by around 9 percent so far in 2016, with global stock markets having been impacted by concerns about weakness in China, the world's second-biggest economy. ($1 = 0.8763 euros) (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Atul Prakash)