ING To Cut Its Stake In Voya Financial To About 19%

(RTTNews) - Dutch banking firm ING Group (ING) said that it agreed to sell shares of common stock of Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) in an underwritten public offering.

In addition, ING Group has entered into a share repurchase agreement with Voya under which Voya will repurchase $175 million of its shares of common stock from ING Group. The price per share payable by Voya as part of the share repurchase will be the same as the price paid by the underwriters to ING Group as part of the underwritten offering.

The offering and the repurchase will result in the sale of the total of 34.5 million shares which will reduce ING Group's stake in Voya to approximately 19% at the completion of the transactions from the 32.5% currently held.

On completion of the transactions, any remaining ING Group shares in Voya are expected to be subject to a lock-up period of 45 days from the pricing of the offering. The transactions are expected to settle on 18 November 2014.

Previously, ING Group had announced its intention to divest its remaining stake in Voya over time, in line with its strategy to separate and divest its insurance and investment management businesses. In this context, ING Group sold shares of Voya through an initial public offering in May 2013 and follow-on offerings in October 2013, March 2014 and September 2014.