ING announces exercise of underwriters’ option to acquire additional shares in ING U.S.
Amsterdam, 21 March 2014
ING Group announced today that the underwriters in the offering of shares of ING U.S. Inc., its U.S.-based retirement, investment and insurance subsidiary, have exercised their option to purchase an additional 3,975,000 shares of ING U.S. from ING Group. The sale of these additional shares further reduces ING Group’s ownership stake in ING U.S. from approximately 45% to approximately 43%.
The gross proceeds to ING Group from the exercise of the option are approximately USD 140 million (approximately EUR 100 million at current exchange rates). This brings the total proceeds of the offering to approximately EUR 950 million which ING Group intends to use for the reduction of Group core debt.
ING Group has previously announced its intention to divest its remaining stake in ING U.S. over time, in line with its strategy to separate and divest its insurance and investment management businesses. In this context, ING Group sold shares of ING U.S. through an initial public offering in May 2013 and a follow-on offering in October 2013. Any sale of ING Group’s retained ING U.S. shares is subject to a lock-up period of 90 days from the pricing of the offering (subject to certain exceptions and the underwriters’ ability to waive lock-up restrictions). ING U.S. shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “VOYA”.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. The registration statement relating to the offering may be obtained by visiting the SEC website at www.sec.gov.
ING PROFILE
ING is a global financial institution of Dutch origin, offering banking, investments, life insurance and retirement services to meet the needs of a broad customer base. Going forward, we will concentrate on our position as an international retail, direct and commercial bank, while creating an optimal base for an independent future for our insurance and investment management operations
IMPORTANT LEGAL INFORMATION
Certain of the statements contained in this document are not historical facts, including, without limitation, certain statements made of future expectations and other forward-looking statements that are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those in such statements due to, without limitation: (1) changes in general economic conditions, in particular economic conditions in ING's core markets, (2) changes in performance of financial markets, including developing markets, (3) consequences of a potential (partial) break-up of the euro, (4) the implementation of ING's restructuring plan to separate banking and insurance operations, (5) changes in the availability of, and costs associated with, sources of liquidity such as interbank funding, as well as conditions in the credit markets generally, including changes in borrower and counterparty creditworthiness, (6) the frequency and severity of insured loss events, (7) changes affecting mortality and morbidity levels and trends, (8) changes affecting persistency levels, (9) changes affecting interest rate levels, (10) changes affecting currency exchange rates, (11) changes in investor, customer and policyholder behaviour, (12) changes in general competitive factors, (13) changes in laws and regulations, (14) changes in the policies of governments and/or regulatory authorities, (15) conclusions with regard to purchase accounting assumptions and methodologies, (16) changes in ownership that could affect the future availability to us of net operating loss, net capital and built-in loss carry forwards, (17) changes in credit-ratings, (18) ING's ability to achieve projected operational synergies and (19) the other risks and uncertainties detailed in the risk factors section contained in the most recent annual report of ING Groep N.V. Any forward-looking statements made by or on behalf of ING speak only as of the date they are made, and, ING assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information or for any other reason. This document does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities.