ING REIM’s head to retire

George Jautze, chief executive officer of ING Real Estate Investment Management, the real estate investment management business of Dutch financial conglomerate ING, is to retire.

He will be replaced by William Connelly, head of banking services within ING Commercial Banking, from 1 March.

Jautze brings the curtain down on almost 20-years at ING’s real estate business. He joined in 1991 as manager of MBO, a real estate finance and development company predating ING REIM. He was promoted to ING Real Estate’s management board in 2001, where he was responsible for its investment management business, before becoming chief executive officer in 2005. When ING RE decoupled last year, he became the chief executive officer of ING REIM.

In October, ING Group announced it would divest ING REIM by the end of 2013, as part of a wider strategy to exit its insurance and investment management businesses. According to the announcement about Jautze’s retirement from ING REIM, however, the platform is currently managed as a “separately-managed global entity” within ING Commercial Banking. A spokesperson reiterated to PERE this morning that the platform is still considered “non-core” and will be divested.

In the announcement, Eric Boyer, chief executive officer of ING Commercial Banking and vice-chairman of ING Group, said: “In light of the recent decision to keep ING REIM with the bank, it is a natural moment for George Jautze to retire and to hand over responsibilities to William Connelly.”

ING REIM added: “The most important priority for ING at this time is to successfully disentangle Banking and Insurance and execute the separation in a way that maximizes value for all stakeholders. In light of this agreement, the transfer of ING REIM to ING Investment Management adds complexity from an organizational, legal, financial and risk perspective at a time when the disentanglement of banking and insurance needs to be the priority.”

ING REIM has a world-wide portfolio of assets under management, valued currently at more than €65 billion.