ING, the Dutch banking and insurance group is now in the process of preparing its European insurance business for stock market listing. The IPO is scheduled next year after the completion of the spin-off of its US investment and insurance unit.
ING was bailed out by the Netherlands government back in 2008 and is now complying with its conditionalities for the receipt of the funds. This includes the divestment of its insurance, investment management and similar assets. It is also reducing its workforce in order to repay the state funds given as well as increase its capital.
Jan Hommen, CEO of ING, said it was not ruling out other options to the listing for the insurance business in Europe, such as a trade sale. He said the company had already undertaken preliminary discussions on the matter, but he observed that other European insurers are 'all struggling for capital.'
He added, "WIth the milestone (US spinoff) completed, we are now accelerating preparations for the base case of an IPO (listing) for our European insurance company with the aim of being ready to go to the market in 2014."
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