GE, Capital One in race to acquire ING Direct USA: report

General Electric and Capital One Financial Corp have submitted bids for Dutch banking major ING Groep NV's US online banking operations in a deal worth about $9 billion, Bloomberg reported yesterday.

Citing people with direct knowledge of the matter, the paper said that ING may reach an agreement to sell ING Direct USA unit as soon as this month.

GE made an all-cash bid, while the offer from McLean, Virginia- based Capital One includes stock.

If successful, GE and Capital One would own the largest online bank in the US, which has $81.6 billion in deposits, but also its debts that includes $40.5 billion of mortgage loans and $19.9 billion of mortgage-backed securities.

Other potential bidders could include Ally Financial Inc., CIT Group Inc and SJB National Bank, said Bloomberg.

Netherlands-based ING was forced to split its insurance and bank operations and agreed to divest ING Direct USA by 2013 to obtain European Commission approval for the €10 billion bailout it received from the Dutch government during the global financial crisis in 2008.

Since then, ING has already sold some of its non-core assets including its Asian private banking business, which it sold in 2010 to Oversea-China Banking Corporation Limited, Singapore's second-largest lender, for $1.5 billion. (See: OCBC acquires ING's Asian unit; launches Bank of Singapore)

This year, it also sold a majority stake in its real estate investment management business to CB Richard Ellis Group Inc, the world's largest commercial real estate services firm, for approximately $940 million in cash. (See: CB Richard Ellis to acquire ING's real estate business for $940 million)