Mercantile Mutual name to disappear
The Mercantile Mutual (Merc) name will disappear from March 1 when it will be rebranded under the name and logo of its Dutch parent company, ING.
The rebranding completes the changeover to its new name that had become evident in Merc's logo and advertising.
Last May, Merc restructured its distribution network into the Adviser Management Group, which had two arms of operation, one of which was the ING Financial Planning (INGFP) group. At the same time, a lion was introduced to the Merc logo and advertising.
A number of other financial services groups have swapped to their parent name in the past few years to better reflect the increasingly global nature of the financial services business. Perhaps the best known is National Mutual which changed its branding to its majority shareholder AXA. Other groups such as Macquarie, Perpetual and Rothschild have formed alliances with large global players to brand their international fund offerings.
The renaming of the business to reflect its Dutch parent ING represents the final step towards the globalisation of the 123 year old Mercantile Mutual company in Australia.
ING Australia's managing director John Wylie, who was appointed head of Merc a month ago, says that the changeover to ING marks a natural evolution for the financial services group.
"Our new name effectively represents the long-standing relationship with our parent and enables us to capitalise on the strong worldwide name of ING," he says.
"We are now increasingly leveraging ideas and innovations, operational synergies, development costs and the global pool of management expertise for the benefit of our clients here - and the name change reflects that capability."
Wylie says research conducted by Merc was supportive of the move towards the ING name. He says ING already has a strong record in financial services in Australia and internationally, and the change of name should also better reflect the fact that Merc is not just an insurer.
"Mercantile Mutual…was too closely associated with insurance and did not reflect the broad scope of our business. This was despite the fact that the majority of our business is now investment and banking based," he says.
The ING group has $800 billion in assets internationally, employing 100,000 employees in 65 countries.
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