ING Selling Selling U.S. Operations in One Group

Puget Sound Business Journal reports: ING will likely sell its U.S. operations—including ShareBuilder Securities Corp. of Seattle—as a single unit, a top executive of the company said in an interview Thursday.

Arkadi Kuhlmann, president and chief executive of ING’s U.S. subsidiary ING Direct, spoke about the sale for the first time since the Dutch financial company announced earlier this week it will sell its U.S. operations by 2013. Kuhlmann heads up those operations, overseeing about $90 billion in assets nationwide.

While Kuhlmann and his Delaware-based team will now begin the search for a buyer, the chief executive is still projecting massive growth at ShareBuilder in Seattle over the next two years. The online discount brokerage, previously based in Bellevue, was purchased about two years ago by ING Direct. It’s headed up by Dan Greenshields, its president.

Sharebuilder only makes up about 5 percent of ING Direct’s revenues, but the company is a crucial piece of ING’s overall business strategy, Kuhlmann said.

“It isn’t one of those things where we’ll have a breakup strategy,” said Kuhlmann, speaking at ShareBuilder’s headquarters in Seattle's Pioneer Square district.

ING Direct is owned by the Dutch company ING Groep. On Monday, the company announced that it will become largely a European bank, selling its American operations and spinning off its insurance activities, as part of a restructuring plan to begin paying back 10 billion euros in government assistance.

Kuhlmann said he expects ShareBuilder’s $4.4 billion of assets under management to double in the next two years and its employee base to similarly grow to 600 from about 300.

As for ING Direct’s process of selling itself, Kuhlmann said it will retain an investment bank and begin looking at prospective buyers, a process that he described as challenging because of the many levels of government and shareholder approval needed. In the U.S., the company is regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Kuhlmann said ING has not yet made up a short list of potential acquirers

“It’s not exactly like bringing a boyfriend home and seeing if mom and dad like them,” he said.