Leading Dutch bank ING announced on Thursday it was offering a minority public stake in its NN Group insurance business, in the final stage of restructuring imposed after a government bail-out following the 2008 banking crisis. "ING today confirms the intention to proceed with (an) initial public offering and listing on (the) Euronext Amsterdam of NN Group," ING said in a statement.
"The intended IPO will consist solely of a secondary offering of a minority holding of NN Group's ... shares held by ING," the Amsterdam-based bank said. Although ING did not put a price on the offer, it announced in April it had secured 1.275 billion euros ($1.7 billion) in investment in the NN Group ahead of the IPO. Three Asian-based firms would act as "anchor investors", injecting 150 million euros ($204 million) into the insurer.
In addition, ING has also issued mandatory exchangeable subordinated notes to the anchor investors to the value of 1,125 billion euros. ING itself valued the NN Group at 10.7 billion euros. ING added it planned to sell more than half of its shares in NN Group by the end of next year and the rest by the end of 2016. NN Group said it aimed at paying 175 million euros in dividends to shareholders by 2015.