Julius Baer Buys ING Swiss Private Bank

ZURICH (TheStreet) -- Swiss bank Julius Baer said Wednesday it agreed to buy the Swiss private-banking unit of Dutch financial company ING(ING Quote) for 520 million Swiss francs ($506 million) in cash.

The deal also includes the acquisition of 170 million francs in surplus capital.

ING Bank (Switzerland) had assets under management of 15 billion francs at the end of August, and it will add 10% to Julius Baer's overall private client assets, Julius Baer said in a statement Wednesday.

The closing of the deal is expected in the first quarter of 2010.

Julius Baer said the acquisition is expected to be earnings neutral next year, and "strongly accretive from 2011 onward, reaching a high single-digit percentage in 2012."

For ING, the sale is part of its plan to sell several noncore businesses in an effort to streamline its operations and pay down a loan of 10 billion euros it received from the Dutch government last year to help it through the financial crisis.

ING also is reportedly in talks to sell its Asian private banking operations.

-- Reported by Joseph Woelfel in New York .

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