AMSTERDAM - ING Group NV, a power in Mexican insurance, said Friday that it will sell its 49% of the Seguros Bital bank insurance joint venture for $148 million.
The announcement came a day after the Dutch banking and insurance group reported an 85% drop in profits, to $191 million, for the first quarter because of losses in its equity portfolio.
The buyer is its partner in the venture, Grupo Financiero Bital SA, a unit of HSBC Holdings PLC of London, which sold the stake to ING five years ago. The reverse sale, which is subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to close in the third quarter.
Seguros Bital is a multiline insurance company focused on the retail market. It has about 500 employees and more than a million clients.
ING will "explore alternative options to continue certain aspects of the commercial relationship between Seguros Bital and ING," said Fred Hubbell, the chairman and chief executive of ING Americas and a member of ING Group's executive board. "We are looking forward to further developing a new form of successful cooperation."
In the last seven years ING has become an insurance leader in the Mexican market through its ING Comercial America, the largest insurance company in Mexico. ING has a total of 5,070 employees, 7.8 million customers, and $5.2 billion assets under management in Mexico.
ING's first-quarter results also included a 70% decline in pretax profits, to $71 million, in the United States, where it bought ReliaStar Financial Corp. and parts of Aetna Inc. for $13.8 billion three years ago. However, its U.S. operating expenses fell 9%; the company cut more than 1,800 jobs last year.
The U.S. unit lost $111 million on its bond investments, mainly because of airlines, ING said. It also spent $62 million to speed the amortization of deferred costs and boost reserves to pay guarantees as fees from equity-linked products slipped.
