ING Aims to Resume Dividends Next Year

AMSTERDAM-- ING Groep NV said Monday that it will start paying dividends again in 2015 as the bailed out Dutch bank seeks to move on from years of restructuring prompted by the financial crisis.

Ahead of an investor day in Amsterdam, ING said it would target a dividend payout ratio of at least 40% after it fully repays a government bailout.

It would be ING's first dividend payment since it came close to collapsing in the 2008 financial crisis and needed government support to stay afloat.

ING is about to complete a five-year restructuring plan imposed on it by European Union antitrust regulators as a condition of its government bailout. The Dutch bank has sold off dozens of assets in recent years and is currently readying its European insurance business for an initial public offering.

"Now that we are in the end stage of the restructuring, with our divestment program and repayment of the Dutch state almost complete, we are proud to be in a position to look ahead to the future," said Chief Executive Ralph Hamers, who took the helm at ING in October.

ING said it aims to grow lending by an annual 4% in the period up to 2017, expand its interest margin to between 150 and 155 basis points, and deliver a cost-income ratio of 50% to 53%. That should lead to a return on equity, a key measure of a bank's profitability, of 10% to 13%, it said.

The goals were broadly in line with targets that ING announced at a previous investor day in 2012.

Write to Maarten van Tartwijk at [e-mail]

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