ING Real Estate saw its pre-tax losses narrow to EUR 6 mln in the third quarter of 2010 compared to a EUR 309 mln pre-tax loss in the same period last year. The real estate arm of banking and insurance group ING booked a loss of EUR 4 mln in the second quarter of 2010. Including the EUR 113 mln loss booked in Q1, total losses for the first nine months came to came EUR 123 mln.
ING Real Estate saw its pre-tax losses narrow to EUR 6 mln in the third quarter of 2010 compared to a EUR 309 mln pre-tax loss in the same period last year. The real estate arm of banking and insurance group ING booked a loss of EUR 4 mln in the second quarter of 2010. Including the EUR 113 mln loss booked in Q1, total losses for the first nine months came to came EUR 123 mln.
ING Real Estate Finance was the best performing division of ING Real Estate in the last three months, booking a result of EUR 102 mln compared to EUR 48 mln profit in the same period last year. ING Real Estate Investment Management (ING REIM) turned in a loss of EUR 1 mln in Q3 this year compared to a profit of EUR 27 in the same period last year.
ING Group CEO Jan Hommen said that the company is working with an external adviser to evaluate possibilities - including a sale - of the real estate investment management (REIM) business. Commenting on the ongoing evaluation, he added: 'We hope to have a resolution before the end of the year.'
Earlier ING Group declined to comment on a report in The Wall Street Journal that Vornado, the US-based listed real estate trust, has entered a bid to acquire ING REIM. Other interested parties are said to be private equity firm KKR and affiliates of property advisers CBRE and JLL. The deadline for bids, according to unnamed sources in the newspaper, is 1 December.
In the three months to end-September, ING Real Estate recorded EUR 92 mln in writedowns on its development division ING Real Estate Development. Total writedowns during the period came to EUR 121 mln following writedowns of EUR 84 mln in Q2.
The entire ING Group saw net profit fall to EUR 371 mln in Q3 compared with EUR 499 mln in the same period last year. The drop was largely due to the US insurance division. The result was also pressured by a loss of EUR 26 mln on the disposal of ING's stake in the Canadian property ING Summit Industrial Fund (Summit). However, net profit excluding extraordinary items rose to just over EUR 1 bn from EUR 727 mln last year.
At the presentation of its results on Wednesday, ING Group said it is preparing two separate IPOs for its insurance activities. One IPO will be in Europe for the European insurance business and the other in the US for the US division.
Click on the link below to read: 'Vornado bids for ING REIM before 1 December deadline - report'
