Globe and Mail fans rumours of potential ING Canada sale

Speculation that ING Canada will be sold grows as ING Groep, the parent company, works to shore up its balance sheet, according to the Globe and Mail’s Streetwise Blog.
Two years ago, ING Groep began selling off insurance subsidiaries in various countries after declaring property and casualty insurance was not part of its core business, Streetwise columnist Andrew Willis noted.
Since that time, the company has been thought of as a takeover target, he adds.
Willis’ blog raises questions about ING Groep’s “commitment to Canada,” as the credit crunch bears down on financial institutes in Europe.
“We believe a need for capital by the parent company could be a catalyst to a potential sale of ING Canada, given its non-core position within ING Groep,” a report from RBC Capital Markets analysts Dennis Westfall and Andre-Philippe Hardy says.
Willis quotes Westfall and Hardy on his blog.
Westfall and Hardy note this is not the perfect time to sell, because the most likely buyers are no doubt in “capital-preservation mode.”
With a Cdn$4.3-billion market capitalization, ING Canada “qualifies as a relatively decent defensive play in a lousy market,” Willis writes. “The two RBC Capital Markets analysts [Westfall and Hardy] noted that the Canadian insurer does not face the same funding, capital and credit issues as banks and life insurers, as “the company has zero debt, $1.4 billion in excess capital (including debt capacity) and a conservative bond portfolio,” Willis writes.