ING Group is leaning toward doing an IPO of its investment management business, according to industry sources.
The Dutch insurer on Monday announced that it is splitting up its banking and insurance operations, which includes its money management business. The firm said it was looking at IPOs, divestitures or a combination of the two.
ING is actively discussing an IPO for its €400 billion ($596 billion) money management division “to get capital quickly,” said one investment banker, who requested not to be named.
“From what I am hearing on the Street, they aren't going to break it into pieces, but they are going to take the whole (money management) company and do an IPO,” said a CEO of a U.S. fund company, who had also heard the rumor, and requested anonymity.
Sources didn't know which investment banking firm ING had tapped or what the valuation of the IPO would be.
ING, however, would not confirm its exact intent for the unit.
“It's too early to come to any form of conclusion or even a suggestion of what the company is going to do,” said Frans Middendorf, an ING Group spokesman. “It's something that will be explored over the next months and years.”
The company plans to complete its restructuring by 2013.
Jessica Toonkel Marquez is a reporter at InvestmentNews, a sister publication of Pensions & Investments.
