ING to sell stake in Capital 1

Dutch banking giant ING announced Tuesday it planned to sell its stake in Capital One, which bought ING's US online banking unit in a multi-billion-dollar deal earlier this year. "ING announced today that it intends to sell all of its 54 million shares in Capital One Financial Corporation," the Amsterdam-based ING said in a statement, but it did not give an amount. "Financial details will be released after pricing of the transaction which is expected to take place prior to opening of the New York Stock Exchange" on Wednesday, ING said. The sale would be done through an underwritten public offer, it added. ING in June last year announced it would sell ING Direct USA to Capital One for $9 billion (7.1 billion euros), making the Virginia-based lender the fifth-largest bank in the United States in terms of deposits. As a result, ING became the largest shareholder in Capital One with a 9.9 percent stake, the companies said at the time. The US Federal Reserve gave the sale the green light in February. Based in McLean, Virginia, Capital One is one of the largest US credit card issuers and has more than 1,000 retail banking branches in the eastern and southern United States. The ING Direct USA sale was part of restructuring imposed on ING by the European Commission after receiving 10 billion euros ($13 billion) from the Dutch government in October 2008 to weather the global financial crisis.