HONG KONG, March 8 -- XFNHK/AsiaNet
ING Group and Macquarie Bank Limited have reached agreement to sell ING's Asian cash equities sales, trading, research and equity capital markets operations in 10 countries in Asia and key locations in Europe and the United States. The transaction is expected to be completed for most core Asian countries by end-July. Under the terms of the agreement ING will transfer to Macquarie a total of 428 employees. Financial details of the transaction are subject to a confidentiality agreement between the two parties.
"We are pleased to have reached an agreement to dispose of the Asian equities platform," said David Hudson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ING in Asia.
"In Asia we are concentrating our efforts on providing value-added products and services to a selected group of clients to whom we cross-sell a broad-range of products. These comprise debt-related financing, mergers & acquisitions advisory and financial markets products."
ING's insurance and asset management operations in Asia are not affected by the disposal.
ING is a global financial institution of Dutch origin offering banking, insurance and asset management to over 60 million private, corporate and institutional clients in 60 countries. With a diverse workforce of about 115,000 people, ING comprises a broad spectrum of prominent companies that increasingly serve their clients under the ING brand.
Following the sale, ING maintains a banking presence across 12 countries in Asia Pacific including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. ING's full product range includes equity derivatives, mergers & acquisitions advisory, debt capital markets, fixed income trading, sales and research, treasury, structured finance, syndicated loans, securitization, foreign exchange, money markets and derivatives and trade & commodity finance.
ING won several awards in 2003 for its banking activities including: Asiamoney Best Restructuring Deal, Asiamoney Best Sub-Investment Grade Bond, Asiamoney Best Local Currency Bond, Euromoney Best M&A House in the Philippines, EuroWeek Best Indonesian Rupiah Bond, Euroweek Best Asian Leveraged Financing, EuroWeek Best Asian High Yield Bond, FinanceAsia Best Local Currency Bond Deal, FinanceAsia Best Asian High Yield and Distressed Credit Research, and The Asset Best Foreign Investment Bank, Indonesia.
Press enquiries:
ING Group
Sheel Kohli
+852 2913 8768
[email protected]
Dorothy Hillenius
+31 20 541 6522
[email protected]
SOURCE: ING Group
--Distributed by AsiaNet (www.asianetnews.net)--