Dutch ING Group sells its unit to Berkshire Hathaway Group

By Margarita Snegireva. Dutch financial services company ING Group NV said on Friday it has agreed to sell its Dutch reinsurance unit NRG NV for about 300 million euros ($435.2 million) to Berkshire Hathaway Group.

Photo: Dutch ING Group sells its unit to Berkshire Hathaway Group

ING said the sale will result in a capital loss after tax of about 100 million euros in 2007 and an improvement of 47 basis points of the debt-equity ratio of ING Group in 2008, Reuters reports.

ING Groep N.V. (known as ING Group) is a financial institution of Dutch origin offering banking, insurance and asset management services. ING once stood for Internationale Nederlanden Groep.

As of 2003, ING covers 60 million private, corporate and institutional clients in 50 countries with a workforce of over 115,000 people. It has offices in Turkey, Canada, Peru, Chile, Spain, France, Italy, Romania, Mexico, the United States, Germany, UK, Belgium, Poland, Austria, Taiwan and Australia. It owns ING Direct, a virtual bank with operations in Australia, Canada, the USA, UK, Spain and elsewhere. In the 2007 Forbes Global 2000, ING was the tenth-largest company in the world.

ING's headquarters in Amsterdam is somewhat renowned as an autonomous building.

Berkshire Hathaway is a conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S., that oversees and manages a number of subsidiary companies. Berkshire Hathaway's core business is insurance, including property and casualty insurance, reinsurance and specialty nonstandard insurance. The Company averaged a 25%+ annual return to its shareholders for the last 25 years while employing large amounts of capital and minimal debt.