ING Dutch Day on Wall Street

The New York Stock Exchange was coloured orange on Thursday 21 June, as it was ING Dutch Day. The most visible part was the ringing of the Opening Bell for the trading day by a party of executives from Dutch companies, led by ING CEO Jan Hommen.

Formally known as the ING CEO/CFO Dutch Equities Forum NY, the forum brings together companies that are listed on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange and US-based investors.
In a series of meetings set up by ING Commercial Banking's Equity Capital Markets team, clients including Vopak, Wereldhave, USG People and Heijmans could introduce themselves to prospective investors in their capital or debt, or could maintain their existing relationships.

The event started with a reception and dinner on the trading floor of co-host NYSE Euronext, in attendance of Dutch Finance Minister Jan-Kees de Jager. But the public highlight of the event obviously was the ringing of the Opening Bell, broadcast daily to a global TV audience of several hundreds of millions.

In a breakfast meeting right before the ceremony, Jan Hommen decided that as the ultimate proof of ING's customer centricity, he would give the honour of actually ringing the bell to one of the attending corporate clients. The improvised draw was won by Delta Lloyd CFO Emiel Roozen, who – as a result – got centre stage at the Opening Bell ceremony, next to Cees Vermaas, CEO of NYSE Euronext Amsterdam and Jan Hommen.

Watch the interview with Jan Hommen.