ING Americas Reports 2001 Results, Contributes 16 Percent to ING Group's Pre-Tax Income
PRNewswire-FirstCall
ATLANTA
Feb 28, 2002
ING Americas, part of Amsterdam-based ING Group (NYSE: ING), today announced it contributed 16 percent of ING Group's pre-tax operating results in 2001. ING Group, one of the largest integrated financial services companies in the world, also announced its full-year results today. ING Americas contributed approximately 11 percent of ING Group's operational pre-tax results during the same period in 2000.
ING Americas' results reflect U.S. market performance in a difficult year, with negative financial impacts from the equity market downturn, the sluggish economy, and reinsurance claims resulting from the attacks on the World Trade Center.
"Last year was a challenge for our business in the U.S. and throughout the whole region," said R. Glenn Hilliard, chairman and CEO of ING Americas. "But it was also a year marked by business successes as well as profound improvements in our integrated strategy and structure in just about every part of ING Americas' landscape. And, because we worked diligently both toward successful integration of acquisitions, as well as maintaining business momentum in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and South America, we are now positioned as a stronger, more integrated and customer-focused group of businesses."
Reflecting the first full year results for Aetna Financial Services and ReliaStar, which were acquired in 2000, pre-tax total profit for ING Americas increased by 38 percent in local currencies during 2001 but was below internal expectations.
Through a series of acquisitions, ING Americas' profile in the U.S. has changed from that of a traditional insurer to that of an asset management company. As a result, the economic downturn had a significant negative impact on assets under management resulting in lower fee income for the year.
Hilliard continued, "Despite adverse economic factors which posed significant challenges across many U.S. industries, we realized an increase of sales for annuities, both variable and fixed, as well as an increase in retirement plan and employee benefit sales in our U.S. business. And very importantly, we continued to see strong performance from our businesses in Canada, Mexico and South America. Although we are disappointed that the impact of the negative external environment has delayed for one year the earnings growth we expected in the U.S., we are maintaining and growing our market share in our primary product lines, and have invested in the infrastructure to assure a return to planned earnings growth in 2002 and beyond."
Responding to the negative financial impacts and in support of its customer-centric strategy, ING Americas announced in December aggregate restructuring plans for the U.S. that would result in a reduction of approximately $250 million in annual operating expenses and the elimination of 1,600 net positions.
"We, along with many other companies in the U.S., continue to face a challenging economic environment," Hilliard said. "However, we have made excellent acquisitions which are being successfully integrated to deliver the results and objectives expected. While we have a track record of successful integrations, these U.S. and Latin American integrations are particularly important given the increasing prominence of ING Americas within ING Group."
Sales results for key segments in ING Group's Americas region are as follows (USD currency):
* ING U.S. Financial Services reported full-year sales of $23.4 billion.
The total sales figure includes annuity, life insurance, mutual fund,
retirement plan and employee benefit products.
* ING U.S. Reinsurance Individual and Group businesses had sales of
$96.8 billion and $140 million, respectively, for the year.
ING Institutional Markets had sales of $3.8 billion in 2001.
* ING Canada recorded full year 2001 sales of $1.4 billion, a growth of
7.4 percent over last year. In the fourth quarter, ING Canada acquired
Zurich Canada to boost non-life business to No. 1 in market.
Regulatory approval was granted early in 2002, allowing the two
companies to distribute their products and services through about two-
thirds of Canadian brokerages.
* ING Mexico had total annual sales of $2.1 billion. With the
acquisition of Seguros Comercial America last year and the retail
rebranding to ING Comercial America, ING is now one of the largest
financial services organizations in Mexico.
* Gross premiums for all of ING's South American businesses totaled
$994 million compared to $210 million in 2000. ING has leading market
positions in several product lines in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru
and is the largest international insurer in South America.
ING Americas comprises integrated financial services operations in North America and Latin America with business operations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Chile. ING Americas offers a comprehensive array of products and services, including life, health and property and casualty insurance; fixed and variable annuities; reinsurance; guaranteed investment contracts and other institutional investment advisory services; retirement plans; employee benefits; and mutual funds.
To date, ING Americas and its affiliates have $168.8 billion in assets under management. ING Americas' parent company, Amsterdam-based ING Group, is one of the largest integrated financial service organizations in the world with $454 billion of assets under management.
Certain of the statements contained in this release are statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those in such statements due to, among other things, (I) general economic conditions, in particular economic conditions in ING's core markets, (II) performance of financial markets, including emerging markets, (III) the frequency and severity of insured loss events, (IV) mortality and morbidity levels and trends, (V) persistency levels, (VI) interest rate levels, (VII) currency exchange rates, (VIII) general competitive factors, (IX) changes in laws and regulations, and (X) changes in the policies of governments and/or regulatory authorities. ING assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this release.
SOURCE: ING Americas
Contact: Dianne Bernez of ING Americas, +1-770-618-3910
Website: http://www.ing-usa.com/