ING and Old Mutual pleased with US results

North America

Life insurance groups are under renewed pressure to justify their expanision plans particularly in the tough and highly competitive US market. This is particularly the case after the announcement by Credit Suisse Group that it will have to inject $1bn of new capital into its struggling insurance subsidiary, Winterthur. ING of the Netherlands, who (along with other major global life insurance groups) saw its stock price fall by more than 3% in the wake of the Credit Suisse announcement, pronounced itself pleased with the half year performance of its US life and savings operations. ING is currently in the process of integrating the businesses that it acquired from Aetna and Reliastar into its US operations. Elsewhere, Old Mutual, the South African financial services group, justified its foray into the US market by buying Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance from St Paul Companies for $635mn last year.