Australia's Macquarie Bank today begins its due diligence on the transfer of the Dutch group's business units
Dutch financial group ING is in talks to sell most of its equity business in 10 Asian economies to Australia's Macquarie Bank to focus on more profitable debt, derivatives and mergers and acquisitions operations, according to a joint announcement yesterday.
While ING's retreat from the Asian equity scene would follow in the footsteps of a string of small and medium-sized houses, some analysts were puzzled by Macquarie's plan for a grand return less than a year after scaling back its Asian equities business in March.
The two were expected to conclude exclusive due diligence for the transfer of ING's Asian equity sales, trading, research and equity capital markets business units towards the end of this month, a Hong Kong-based ING spokesman said yesterday.
He said Macquarie - whose existing Hong Kong business includes derivatives, corporate and structured finance, fund management and real-estate advisory - intended to retain all 380 ING employees expected to be affected by the proposed transaction.
The 250 ING Financial Markets front-office jobs and 130 back-office positions are located in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the mainland, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, as well as Asian equity sales and trading desks in London and the Asian sales desks in New York and other key markets.
