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ING Group reclassified to Banks subsector by ICB

26 June 2014 ... min read

ING Group has been reclassified from the "Life Insurance" subsector into "Banks" by the Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB), effective as of 23 June 2014.

The reclassification of ING Group was triggered by significant changes in ING's business portfolio and the financial information in the 2013 annual report (published in March 2013), which clearly demonstrate that banking is now the company's primary business.

Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB)

ICB is a definitive system categorizing over 70,000 companies and 75,000 securities worldwide, enabling the comparison of companies across four levels of classification and national boundaries. Classification systems such as ICB play an important role in the global financial community since they provide a standardised basis for analysis, stock selection and performance measurement.

Under ICB rules, each company is allocated to the subsector that most closely represents the nature of its business, which is determined by its source of revenue or where it constitutes the majority of revenue.

"The reclassification of ING Group into the Banks subsector is recognition that we are well on track to complete the divestment of our insurance and investment management businesses," said Malcolm Brown, Head of ING Group Investor Relations. "This is an important acknowledgement that industry benchmarks are correctly aligned with our strategy, financial performance and perception from the investment community."

ICB is maintained by FTSE International Limited and is widely used within the investment management industry as well as by a range of other organisations including the Financial Times and stock exchanges such as NYSE Euronext, NASDAQ OMX and the London Stock Exchange. ICB is also the classification standard used by global leaders in indexing including FTSE Group, STOXX Limited, Russell Indexes, NASDAQ OMX Indexes and NYSE Euronext.

FTSE Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB) corporate brochure (PDF, 133 KB)

Effective 23 June 2014, FTSE has implemented several index changes to include ING Group as a Bank. For example:

Index name ING Group weighting*
FTSEurofirst Euro Banks Index 8.95%
FTSEurofirst Banks Index 4.30%

* as of close of business 25 June 2014

Changes implemented by other classification benchmarks and index providers are still pending.

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