BANGKOK, July 20 -- Xinhua/ PRNewswire/ AsiaNet ING today announced the appointment of Stephen Briones as Country Head of Thailand. He reports to John Howland-Jackson, Head of Wholesale Relationship Management, Asia and David Hudson, CEO of ING Bank, Asia. Mr Briones will be responsible for managing and developing ING's Wholesale Banking client coverage activities and will ensure that ING's client base in Thailand has easy access to ING's wide-range of advisory and debt-financing expertise. ING has a long standing franchise in Thailand offering a variety of value-added activities including Structured Finance, Debt Capital Markets, Securitisation, Mergers & Acquisition Advisory, Corporate Finance, Financial Engineering, International Trade and Export Finance and General Lending. Mr. Briones brings 14 years of investment banking and relationship management experience, of which ten years has been spent working with clients in Asia. He joins ING from Devonshire Capital Group, where from 2002 he led the origination and execution of transactions throughout South East Asia and India and was part of a team who helped Devonshire establish an investment banking joint venture with Kiatnakin Finance Group In Thailand. Prior to this Mr Briones worked as a consultant to Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds in Thailand and was CFO of Web Advisory Company, a Bangkok-based Internet advisory group. Mr. Briones was also a First Vice-President in Corporate Finance at Jardine Fleming and between 1995 and 1998 worked in Equity Research and Corporate Finance at ING Barings. John Howland-Jackson, Head of Wholesale Relationship Management stated, "This appointment points to ING's intent to develop a deep and effective network of client relationship managers across Asia. Our strategy is to bring ING's core expertise of debt-financing and advisory products and services to our most important clients and Mr. Briones brings a huge amount of experience to the role." 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 50 countries. With a diverse workforce of approximately 112,000 people, ING comprises a broad spectrum of prominent companies that increasingly serve their clients under the ING brand. ING Bank, a division of ING Group, conducts a wide range of international financial services including sales, trading and distribution of debt market products, research, treasury, foreign exchange, money markets and derivatives. It also offers corporate finance, M&A advisory, origination of debt capital markets products, private banking services, securitisation and corporate and structured lending. Additionally, ING has unique strengths in cash management, international payments, wholesale insurance and employee benefits products. Press enquiries: ING Bank N.V., Hong Kong Sheel Kohli, +852 2913 8768 [email protected] Karen Williams, +852 2913 8536 [email protected] SOURCE: ING --Distributed by AsiaNet (www.asianetnews.net)----InfoQuest (PP)--