ING in talks to sell car leasing business for around $5.7 bn: report

Dutch financial services group ING Groep NV is in talks to sell its car leasing business in a deal potentially worth $5.7 billion (€4 billion), a Dutch newspaper today reported.

Citing sources familiar with the plans, the financial daily newspaper newspaper Het Financieele Dagblaad said ING has been talking to potential buyers for months.

The Amsterdam–based newspaper said ING's advisory banks have been negotiating a deal with leading car leasing firms that include BNP Paribas' Arval, Volkswagon, Rabobank subsidiary Athlon, BMW-Alphabet and GE Fleet Services.

ING Car Lease, a subsidiary of ING Lease Holding and part of the ING Group is one of the top 5 international non-captive players in the field of full operational car lease solutions in Europe having a fleet of 360,000 vehicles.

It offers general leasing in 14 countries and car leasing in 9 countries. Its operation spans countries including the Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Italy and Poland. It also offers financial leasing services for cars in all Central and Eastern European countries via the general lease business units in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Russia and through its alliances in Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Austria.

Having customers in both the corporate and public sectors, it offers a wide range of products and services, from vehicle leasing and all-encompassing fleet management, to risk management and environmental fleet reporting.

Last week, ING's agreed to sell its US online bank for $9 billion in cash and stock to Capital One Financial Corp as part of the deal brokered with European Commission (EC) to divest ING Direct USA by 2013 in exchange for the €10 billion bailout it received from the Dutch government during the global financial crisis in 2008.

Although selling ING Car Lease is not part of the EC deal, the Netherlands-based 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)