ING Completes Divestment Of Voya Shares For Total Proceeds Of $2 Bln

(RTTNews) - ING Group (ING) announced the pricing for the sale of 45.6 million shares of common stock of Voya Financial Inc. (VOYA) that was announced on 3 March 2015. In the public offering ING Group has sold approximately 32 million Voya shares at a price of $44.20 per share. In addition ING Group has sold to Voya approximately 13.6 million shares for an aggregate amount of $600 million.

The sale completes the divestment of ING's U.S.-based retirement, investment and insurance business a process that started with the initial public offering in May 2013 of Voya Financial, Inc. ING Bank will remain active in the US through its Corporate and Institutional Clients platform which is headquartered in New York.

The gross proceeds to ING Group from the public offering and the concurrent repurchase by Voya amount to approximately $2.0 billion or approximately EUR 1.8 billion at current exchange rates. The sale of the total of 45.6 million shares from the combined transactions reduces ING Group's stake in Voya from 18.9% to zero.

The transactions are expected to settle on 9 March 2015. After this transaction, ING Group will continue to hold warrants for approximately 26 million shares in Voya at an exercise price of $48.75.

The transactions are expected to result in a net profit to ING at closing of approximately EUR 285 million. This broadly reflects the difference between the market value of our 18.9% stake in Voya at the date ING lost significant influence, and the current market value of this stake of approximately EUR 1.8 billion.