ING is to sell its Latin American insurance operations to Grupo de Inversiones Suramericana for €2.7bn, the financial services group said in a statement on Monday.

The sale is the first ‘major step’ in the divestment of ING’s insurance and investment management activities, which has been ordered by the European Commission. The sale will deliver a book profit of some €1bn.
‘We continue to prepare our remaining insurance and investment management businesses for our base case of two IPOs – one for the US businesses and one for the European and Asian businesses – so that we will be ready to proceed when markets are favourable,’ CEO Jan Hommen said.