ING has merged the bank’s investment offices in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. ‘The aim of the operation is to become stronger together,’ says Bob Homan, who heads up the Investment Office which now employs 50 people.
The rationale behind the merger is that the investment offices of the country organisations actually do the same work. ‘They focus on research, asset allocation, selection of instruments and communication,’ says Homan in an interview with Investment Officer. The merger did not cost any jobs.
Binding allocation
The merged Investment Office is headed by Homan as CIO and Thierry Masset - who heads the Belgian section - as deputy CIO. Luxembourg CIO Laurent Simeoni completes the committee.
‘We determine the tactical asset allocation, which is binding, in the Investment Committee,’ says Homan. ‘Subsequently, however, we still have to find the right method, taking into account the differences in for example risk preference between the three countries. It has also been determined that the Dutch fall hierarchically under Dutch managers and the Belgian and Luxembourg colleagues under Belgian managers.
In addition, the fund management units will be merged into a single entity. This applies to equity research, as well as to selecting the instruments. The latter involves the selection of equities, bonds, funds and ETFs. The analysts brief the portfolio managers on this.
The communication on the reports of the funds and the portfolios will also increasingly be organised according to a single format. ‘But there will of course still be two writing teams, because this still requires distinction’, says Homan.
Coronavirus
He says that the coronavirus pandemic accelerated the merger process. ‘I used to call Thierry every week, as well as Laurent Simeoni in Luxembourg. But the prevailing view was that you had to see each other physically for any serious discussions. As a result, we would draw up a whole list of subjects to discuss and save it until we met each other again. But the lockdown taught us that communicating remotely, via video calls, is much easier.’
The 50 employees of the integrated Investment Office - with 27 men and women in the Netherlands, 17 in Belgium and five in Luxembourg - manage an estimated 35 to 40 billion euros in assets for clients.