Merc makes a mozza for ING

Mercantile Mutual’s investment and life insurance businesses recorded strong growth in the 1999 year, offsetting losses in its parent company’s general insurance and banking arms.

Mercantile Mutual’s investment and life insurance businesses recorded strong growth in the 1999 year, offsetting losses in its parent company’s general insurance and banking arms.

ING says pre-tax profit for its insurance division rose 50 per cent to $129.4 million for the 12 months to December 31, 1999. Premium income for Mercantile Mutual Life Insurance (MML) rose 40 per cent to $3.9 billion, boosting its pre-tax profit to $A79.9 million from $57.51 million in the previous year.

Phil Shirriff, chief executive of ING Asia Pacific, says the life insurance gains out-weighed the losses in Mercantile Mutual's general insurance business, which suffered from Sydney’s hailstorm last year.

Shirriff said the life result was boosted by strong growth in single premiums - both in superannuation and investment products - and in risk products.

Merc’s investment management operations, with $27 billion in funds under manage-ment, also did very well, Shirriff says He says the group is also looking for acquisi-tions to improve its scale and distribution.

"We could comfortably cope with an acquisition of up to half a billion dollars," he says, adding that nothing was on the horizon.

ING's local banking operations returned a pre-tax loss of $1.6 million.

"The principle items there were a reasonable profit in the mortgage bank (ING Mer-cantile Mutual Bank) and that was offset by a loss on ING Direct.

"It incurred fairly heavy start-up losses in technology and advertising," Shirriff says. ING Direct was launched in New South Wales in the last quarter of 1999.

First launched in Canada three years ago, ING Direct is also to be rolled out in the United States this year.