That will atone for €10bn of state aid received during the crisis. But now it
is selling stuff voluntarily – take this week’s C$3.1bn sale of ING Direct
in Canada to Bank of Nova Scotia. Put simply, ING still needs to bolster its
capital: the net €1.1bn gainand capital release of €1.4bn will boost its
core tier one ratio by almost 50 basis points to 11.6 per cent, pre-Basel
III. And that will fall by about 150bp when ING repays a final €3bn of state
aid (plus a €1.5bn premium), so boss Jan Hommen needs to keep the capital
flowing in. But his biggest task still lies ahead: selling the insurance arm.
Here, at least, things are looking up. The sale of its Asian insurance units,
already treated as “discontinued”, seems imminent, possibly via multiple
deals. They could fetch about €8bn, or 1.2 times book value, on analysts’
estimates. Deduct related debt of about €4bn and the proceeds could almost
halve the leverage at group level. ING also looks on track to list its US
insurer. That leaves its European insurer, which could simply be unbundled
if it achieves a decent premium on the other operations.
That is plausible. Mr Hommen’s record as a forced seller is good, so far.
Based on ING Direct Canada’s €1.8bn of equity, he sold it at 1.7 times book
value. True, its US cousin barely achieved book value last year, but the
Capital One shares taken in part payment have gained a quarter since. ING
sold most of its Latin American insurance business for 1.8 times book. Yet
for all Mr Hommen’s progress at restructuring, ING still trades at a humdrum
0.4 times book – much like any other banking victim of the eurozone crisis.
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