NU Online News Service, March 17, 2003, 5:50 p.m. EST – The ING Groep N.V., Amsterdam, is writing down about $14 billion in goodwill in connection with past acquisitions, such as the 2001 acquisitions of ReliaStar Financial Corp., Minneapolis, and the financial services and international units of Aetna Inc., Hartford.
The writedowns represent a decrease in the stated value of the units that ING carries on its books.
Dutch accounting rules let ING amortize goodwill over time and use the original acquisition price when calculating goodwill, but U.S. accounting rules require ING to treat goodwill as a capital item and review goodwill annually to see whether market conditions have cut the value of acquired units, ING says.