| ING acquires Abbey’s property portfolio |
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AMSTERDAM - ING Real Estate, a division of Dutch financial services group ING Groep NV, has announced that it had acquired the property portfolio of Abbey National PLC. The deal is valued at EUR1.74 billion in cash.
ING also said that its insurance segment would fund up to EUR 277 million in equity finance towards the deal. ING Real Estate also said that though the cash being spent was substantial, the deal would not make any significant dent in its overall profits. The group's finances are indeed flush what with the ING Groep reporting a pretax profit of EUR4.4 billion and the ING Real Estate announcing a pretax profit of EUR161 million for the first six months of the current year.
Robert Houston, chief executive of ING Real Estate Investment Management U.K was of the opinion that a deal as lucrative as the Abbey one could not be expected to come by everyday. He added that the U.K. commercial property segment is in great demand and that the coming years would only increase this demand.
ING Real Estate is a leading player in property stakes and had 16 offices across the globe including those based in Europe, the U.S. and Australia. Commenting on the latest move by the group, Ton Gietman of Petercam said, "The acquisition sum looks very high at first sight, but only a part will be paid by ING itself. The remainder of the money will be divided among funds that participate in the investment."
Posted
on : Tue, 23 Aug 2005 07:05 GMT | Investments News
By : Rob Davis
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