ING closes $900M CitiStreet acquisition

ING Groep announced today that it completed the acquisition of CitiStreet LLC, one of the premier retirement plan and benefit service organization’s in the United States. The deal makes Hartford, Conn.-based ING Wealth Management, a division of Amsterdam, Netherlands-based ING Groep NV, the third largest defined contribution business in the country. The company’s combined assets under management and assets under administration are more than $300 billion. The combined company now has the second largest number of plan participants — 16 million — and the largest number of plans — 60,000 — the company said in a statement. In May, Citigroup Inc. and State Street Corp. agreed to sell CitiStreet LLC for $900 million in cash. CitiStreet of Quincy, Mass., provided banking and administrative services to more than 16,000 defined contribution plans and 12 million participants. It had $262 billion in assets under administration. The firm was formed in 2000 and was owned equally by New York-based Citigroup and Boston-based State Street. “ING is one of the few retirement services companies that has a scaled leadership presence in the small, mid and large corporate, education, and government and health care markets, which allows us to design and implement retirement and benefit solutions for any plan sponsor we encounter,” Kathleen Murphy, chief executive of ING U.S. Wealth Management, said in a statement.