Things are changing at ING

Friday, April 7th 2006, 6:46AM

In the March issue of ASSET we profiled the departure of Paul Fyfe from the helm of ING. Our reasoning was that this was in many ways the last of the old guard leaving our industry. (I guess a little debatable in retrospect as Jim Minto, for one, is part of the old guard). It was certainly the exit of one of the bigger personalities of the industry.

With Fyfe's departure, I predict, we will now see many changes at ING.

There is some talk that under its new stewardship the company will become much more focused on insurance at the expense of investments. While it is too early to say I have found it fascinating how many people have made this comment to me. Maybe it is more perception than reality? Time will tell.

One thing which is changing is that the business is moving from being run by a personality to an organisation that has a corporate culture or company image. (Hopefully you know what I mean!)

Here's an example. In the past ING was always associated with being a major supporter of a compulsory savings environment - I couldn't count how many times Fyfe went on record with this and how many press releases went out with him saying it.

But just last week ING's chief investment officer Rebecca Thomas stood up in front of an audience and said compulsory super won't work in New Zealand.

That is a pretty big change and illustrates the shift in power well.

What will also be interesting is to see how the personnel in the organisation changes. ING has undoubtedly had a stable, long-serving senior management team. My observation over the years is that when there are changes at the top there are often people changes throughout the company.

As usual I welcome any comments. Please send them to blog@goodreturns.co.nz

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