truehappiness: Almost, but not quite!
Avex has always been Avex, ever since it was founded in 1988. Axev was a subsidiary that avex started for promotional & management stuff in 1995 (it was called White Atlas until '97 though). Axev was in charge of marketing, goods, artist management, a whole bunch of stuff that's been divided into separate subsidiaries in the years since Max became CEO.
Another fun fact, axev is pronounced like "axiv" instead of "axev" for some reason
(Some english speakers have only one sound for the short i and the short e but to me and for most english speakers they're totally different sounds)... so that makes the word even more confusing