OREANDA-NEWS. ING announced today the successful sale of 52 million ordinary shares of NN Group. Following strong demand, ING Group decided to upsize the transaction from the 43 million shares, as announced earlier. The shares have been sold at a price of EUR 24.00 per share. As part of the transaction, NN Group has repurchased 8.3 million shares at the same price per share, for an aggregate amount of EUR 200 million. The gross proceeds to ING Group from the offering, including the repurchase by NN Group, amounted to EUR 1.2 billion. The transaction has reduced ING Group's stake in NN Group's outstanding capital from 68.1% to 54.6%.

ING Group has previously announced that, following the initial public offering of NN Group on 2 July 2014, ING Group intends to divest its remaining stake in NN Group over time, in line with its strategy to divest all of its insurance and investment management businesses. With this transaction, ING Group further reduces its stake in NN Group while retaining flexibility in the divestment of the remaining stake. NN Group ordinary shares are traded on Euronext Amsterdam under the symbol 'NN'.

The ordinary shares have been sold by way of an accelerated book building offering to institutional investors and to NN Group. As of settlement of the transaction, the remaining shares in NN Group held by ING Group will be subject to a lock-up period of 90 days (subject to certain exceptions and the Joint Bookrunners' right to waive the lock up restrictions). The transaction is expected to settle on 20 February 2015.

The transaction will not impact the profit and loss account of ING Group. The transaction is expected to have a negative impact of approximately EUR 1.6 billion on the shareholders' equity of ING Group. This amount reflects the difference between the net proceeds of the transaction and the IFRS book value as of 31 December 2014 of the stake being sold. The actual amount of any decrease in ING Group's shareholders' equity will depend on the actual book value at the date of settlement of the transaction and will be reflected in the first-quarter financial statements of ING Group. The transaction will not affect the shareholders' equity or capital ratios of ING Bank, while the transaction is expected to have a positive effect of around 40 basis points on the ING Group CET1 ratio on a fully loaded basis.