ING has plans to expand the scope of the base case Initial Public Offering (IPO) of ING Insurance to include its Japanese life division.
As part of the move, ING has entered into an agreement with the European Commission (EC) on a revised timeline for the European and Japanese insurance divestments.
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ING Group CEO Ralph Hamers said that after carefully exploring and evaluating the options available for the divestment of ING Life Japan, the company has come to the conclusion that a standalone sale of this business is not feasible in a manner that meets the demands of its stakeholders.
"In that context, ING Life Japan will be included in the scope of the ING Insurance IPO," Hamers added.
As part of a previously announced restructuring agreement with the EC, ING planned to sell over 50% of ING’s Asian insurance and investment management operations by the end of 2013, and successfully offloaded most of these businesses over the last year.
Under the revised timelines, ING Life Japan will be divested in line with the divestment timeline for ING’s European insurance and investment management activities – a two-year extension to 2015-end.
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By GlobalDataING said that the preparations for the base case IPO of ING Insurance in 2014 was on track.
"Today’s announcement provides further clarity on the planned IPO of ING Insurance which is preparing itself to be ready to go to the market in 2014.
"While we still have work ahead of us, I’m looking forward to completing the Group restructuring by end 2016 at the latest, and seeing our Bank and Insurance businesses pursue their own future success as standalone companies," Hamers said.
