HSBC Holdings to bid for ING’s Private Banking Assets

HSBC Holdings PLC (NYSE: HBC) submitted a bid to purchase ING Groep NV’s (ING) private banking assets, according to the Wall Street Journal and several other sources.

ING put up both its Asian and Swiss private banking assets for sale and potential purchasers of those assets can choose to bid on either one of both of the assets. The source reporting declined to state the total how much HSBC Holdings has bid for the assets and whether or not it was bidding on both sets of assets or just one of them.

Individuals familiar with the situation said on Thursday that ING has received five bids for its private banking assets in Asia and three bids for its Swiss operations. Some of the bidders included DBS Holdings Ltd and Swiss wealth manager Julie Baer Holding AG.

Analysts have stated that Singapore’s DBS likely have only bid on ING’s Asian assets while Julius Bear’s bid was likely for both sets of assets to strengthen its market penetration at home and abroad. Sources state that ING will name the preferred bidder for their asset sale on September 13^th of 14^th. Then, the preferred bidder will go into details negotiations with ING over price and other specifics.

It’s estimated that ING will bringing in about $2 billion in proceeds, which ING will help use to pay off the EUR10 billion in bailout funds it received from the Dutch government in October of 2008.

Currently, ING’s private banking operations in Asia include $16 billion in assets and its Swiss operations include $15 billion in assets.