ING is going to resort to state guarantees for its loan portfolio and is set to make 7,000 employees redundant, while the Chief Executive Officer of the Dutch financial group, Michel Tilmant, is to withdraw from this position, in the wake of a 3.3bn-euro loss in the last quarter of 2008. The lending institution yesterday announced full-year losses amounted to one billion euros, after a negative result of 3.3bn euros for the last three months of 2008, which represented the weakest quarter of the past fifty years for capital and lending markets. ING’s loan portfolio alone generated losses of two billion euros in the October-December period, according to the Dutch bank. Under the circumstances, the financial group will make 7,000 employees redundant of the total headcount of 130,000 people, and CEO Michel Tilmant, who had been in this position since 2004, will step down and be replaced by the current chairman of the Supervisory Board of ING Group, Jan Hommen. Additionally, the Dutch government will guarantee 80% of the portfolio of securities and assets related to the subprime mortgage market, totally worth 27.7bn euros. Thus, the state will assume the risks generated by this portfolio and will receive 80% of the cash generated by the respective securities. In October, ING benefited from a 10bn-euro capital injection from the government. The Dutch group is also present in Romania, through ING Bank Romania.

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