ING U.S. said Wednesday evening that its initial public offering of stock would begin trading Thursday at $19.50 a share, below the proposed $21 to $24 price per share it had forecast last month.
“There are many factors and considerations that go into (IPO) pricing,” Dana Ripley, a spokesman for ING U.S., said in an interview. He didn't provide details.
ING U.S. is being spun off as a separate company from its Dutch parent, ING Group NV. It will trade under the symbol VOYA on the New York Stock Exchange. ING U.S. previously said it would rename itself Voya Financial and rebrand all products and services under the Voya name in 2014.
“The IPO consists of both a primary component offered by ING U.S. and a secondary component offered by ING Group,” according to an ING U.S. news release issued Wednesday evening. "Prior to the closing of this offering, ING U.S. is a wholly owned subsidiary of ING Group.”
The total offering of 65.2 million shares — excluding any exercise by underwriters of their option to buy more shares — will be worth approximately $1.3 billion, the news release said. The IPO will reduce parent ING Group's ownership in ING U.S. to 75% immediately following the IPO.
Last month, in setting the IPO range of $21 to $24, ING U.S. predicted the initial public offering would raise as much as $1.5 billion.
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup Global Markets are acting as joint global coordinators for the offering, the news release said. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith; Credit Suisse Securities (USA), Deutsche Bank Securities and J.P. Morgan Securities are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering, the news release said.
