ING sold its 50% stake in its Chinese insurance joint venture ING-BOB Life Insurance Company to BNP Paribas Cardif

Amsterdam, 11-7-2013 — /europawire.eu/ — ING announced today that it has agreed to sell its 50% stake in its Chinese insurance joint venture ING-BOB Life Insurance Company to BNP Paribas Cardif, the insurance arm of BNP Paribas. The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, is not expected to have a material impact on ING Group results.

The transaction is part of ING’s earlier announced process to divest ING’s insurance and investment management businesses. The process to divest the remaining insurance and investment management businesses in Asia is on-going and any further announcements will be made if and when appropriate. Today’s announcement does not affect ING Bank’s 13.7% stake in Bank of Beijing, nor does it affect ING’s Commercial Banking activities in China.

ING’s Chinese life insurance joint venture was established in 2002 and today operates eight branches in seven provinces and municipalities in China. It offers savings and protection products to families in China through an agency network and through bank branches.

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ING PROFILE
ING is a global financial institution of Dutch origin, offering banking, investments, life insurance and retirement services to meet the needs of a broad customer base. Going forward, we will concentrate on our position as an international retail, direct and commercial bank, while creating an optimal base for an independent future for our insurance and investment management operations

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Certain of the statements contained herein are not historical facts, including, without limitation, certain statements made of future expectations and other forward-looking statements that are based on management’s current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those in such statements due to, without limitation: (1) changes in general economic conditions, in particular economic conditions in ING’s core markets, (2) changes in performance of financial markets, including developing markets, (3) consequences of a potential (partial) break-up of the euro, (4) the implementation of ING’s restructuring plan to separate banking and insurance operations, (5) changes in the availability of, and costs associated with, sources of liquidity such as interbank funding, as well as conditions in the credit markets generally, including changes in borrower and counterparty creditworthiness, (6) the frequency and severity of insured loss events, (7) changes affecting mortality and morbidity levels and trends, (8) changes affecting persistency levels, (9) changes affecting interest rate levels, (10) changes affecting currency exchange rates, (11) changes in investor, customer and policyholder behaviour, (12) changes in general competitive factors, (13) changes in laws and regulations, (14) changes in the policies of governments and/or regulatory authorities, (15) conclusions with regard to purchase accounting assumptions and methodologies, (16) changes in ownership that could affect the future availability to us of net operating loss, net capital and built-in loss carry forwards, (17) changes in credit-ratings, (18) ING’s ability to achieve projected operational synergies and (19) the other risks and uncertainties detailed in the Risk Factors section contained in the most recent annual report of ING Groep N.V. Any forward-looking statements made by or on behalf of ING speak only as of the date they are made, and, ING assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information or for any other reason. This document does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities.